No smoke alarms sounded, but smoke was a big signal for him to get out of his burning home.

It happened around 1:30 Sunday afternoon near the intersection of Chinoe Road and Cooper Drive.

"He was cooking at the time. But the fire was not in the kitchen," says Major Madden with the Lexington Fire Department. The Lexington man was unaware that part of his home was on fire. "There's a significant amount of damage to the contents of the fire room but smoke damage throughout the house."

That smoke is what neighbors noticed first. "Well my little brother told me to look out the window and there was smoke coming out of the house over there," remembers Aaron Rutter, a neighbor.

Firefighters say the homeowner might have been able to prevent the destruction had there been working smoke detectors."Smoke detectors are always important to have and operating. I asked the occupant and he said he was not alerted by a smoke detector and he said there were none in the house," says Major Madden.

At least for neighbors, it was a good reminder. "It looks like it gutted the whole inside of the house," says Martin Kish, another neighbor. "So it just goes to show you you never know how fast these things spread that's just real scary to think about. You hate to see someone lose all their belongings. You work so hard for things and here in a matter of minutes, it's gone."