TUPPER LAKE – A fire ravaged singer-songwriter Martin Sexton’s second home Saturday morning.

Sexton’s songs have been featured on the television shows “Scrubs,” “Parenthood” and “Brotherhood.” Originally from Syracuse, he and his family primarily reside in Northampton, Massachusetts, but have maintained a second home around here for several years: first on the Saranac River near Saranac Lake and more recently at 783 Bartlett Carry Road, between Saranac Lake and Tupper Lake.

No one was injured in the fire.

“I thank God my family is safe and nothing else matters,” Sexton said in a statement on his Facebook page. “We are blessed.”

The Tupper Lake Volunteer Fire Department received a call from the Sextons at 6:47 a.m.

“It was fully involved when I got there,” Chief Carl Steffen told the Enterprise. “The flames were already up to the roof.

“It was a fairly new structure, two years old, approximately,” Steffen said. “It was Adirondack-style, and it was all wood: wood interior, walls and cedar shingles on the outside.”

The fire “appeared to have started from either the fireplace or the chimney above it,” Steffen said. “They (the occupants) were alerted to it because the chimney was built in wood, metal pipe within the wood, and that was on fire and they saw the glow off the trees, went out, and the chimney on top of it was ablaze.”

Steffen said the Sextons had started a small fire in the fireplace before they went to bed around midnight, and they noticed the glow around 6:30 a.m.

“They said there was no smoke or fire within the structure when they got out – it was all up on the top of it,” Steffen said.

“The fire was all outside, and that wood enclosure for the chimney pipe was ablaze,” Steffen said. “It looks like it was probably associated with the fireplace, but my guess would be the chimney, something in the chimney, caught that wood casement on fire and burned down into the place.”

Steffen explained the department’s biggest challenge was finding a suitable water source, despite being near Upper Saranac Lake.

“There’s no hydrants back in there, and it’s quite a drop-off to the lake from there,” Steffen said. “We had to tank water in for the one side and use portable pumps to fight the other side, the lake side of it.”

Steffen explained that it was difficult moving water up the steep incline with a portable pump.

Another difficulty the firefighters faced came from the road itself.

“The road was narrow, and it’s quite a ways back in the woods,” Steffen said. “Once you get a truck in, the road is blocked, so we had to maneuver trucks around to get them back out to a fill site, the tankers, and then get them turned around and get them to come back in again once they loaded with water, and try to synchronize that so you’re not having one truck coming in and one trying to go out.”

Even if the firefighters had not had these challenges, Steffen doubted they could have saved the home.

“It was too far gone when we got there,” Steffen said. “Even if we had a hydrant sitting right there, it wouldn’t have made a difference.”

The home was burned right down to the ground. According to Steffen, Sexton said the house was insured, but he did not believe the insurance would fully cover the cost of the fire.

Richard Loeber, who lives about 4 miles from the property, saw smoke and flames from his residence at about 7 a.m. and called the Saranac Lake Volunteer Fire Department. Loeber spoke to fire driver John McEneany, who informed him that they had already gotten a call about the fire and that a truck was already on the scene.

Steffen said about 35 firefighters were on the scene battling the blaze. The Tupper Lake Volunteer Fire Department responded with two trucks, the Saranac Lake department responded with one truck, the Paul Smiths-Gabriels department responded with three trucks, and the Lake Placid department responded with one truck while the Long Lake department stood by at Tupper Lake’s station. The Tupper Lake rescue squad and state police provided assistance. The Tupper Lake department was back in service at about 12:20 p.m.