KELFORD – A fire that totally destroyed an almost-new home has been ruled as suspicious, according to Detective Sgt. Ed Pittman with the Bertie County Sheriff’s Office.

Pittman told the Roanoke-Chowan News-Herald that emergency dispatch received a call at 3:53 a.m. Monday in reference to a house fire at 3829 Governor’s Road in Kelford.

By the time the Kelford Fire Department arrived and requested aid from the Lewiston and Roxobel Fire Departments, the house was completely engulfed in flames.

The BCSO was contacted and Pittman began his investigation the same day, due to the suspicious nature of the circumstances surrounding the fire.

&uot;No one was at home at the time of the fire and the place where the fire appeared to have started made it suspicious,&uot; Pittman stated.

An arson investigator from the State Bureau of Investigation is assisting Pittman in his search for the fire’s cause.

Both officers conducted a fire scene exam Tuesday.

The cause of the blaze is still pending at this time, but Pittman hopes to have some answers soon.

Only three years old, the house was a one-and-a-half story home thought to have been occupied by only one person, who was not in residence at the time of the fire.