Two condominiums were destroyed and at least four others suffered damage after a blaze ripped through the Highland Cove condominiums Monday morning.

According to DeKalb Fire Chief Donny Green, the three-story, six unit building on Center Hill Lake off Dale Ridge Road likely caused close to one million dollars in damage.

“We got the call at 5:22 a.m. The caller reported that flames were already coming out of the roof, and when we got there that is what we found. One condo unit (Building ‘H’) on the third floor was fully involved, and the fire had moved into the adjoining unit. We also had exposure risk on the ‘G’ building, which is located 40-50 feet from the “H” building. Heat from the fire had melted the siding on the end of the “G” building, so we deployed a large master stream of water to knock the flame and heat back off that building,” said Chief Green.

Green said that the fire started on the top floor of building ‘H’ and swept through the two top-floor units. The condos on the first and second floors did not suffer fire damage because of concrete floors between each level of the building, but there was some smoke and water damage.

Green said that there were problems with the water supply, and water-pressure problems with nearby hydrants forced firefighters to shuttle much of the nearly 100,000 gallons of water needed to douse the fire from the lake.

“We had a little issue with water supply. We had hydrants but there was not a lot of pressure. We set up a tanker shuttle operation, and went down to Cove Hollow Marina to pull water out of the lake,” Green said.

County firefighters were assisted at the scene by departments from Smithville and Cookeville with their ladder trucks.

“Smithville got here with their ladder truck,” Green continued. “We set it up, got water supply to it, and were able to get a pretty good knock down on the fire. We have a deck gun to get water up there, but it’s more effective if you can spray down on it from a ladder truck. We didn’t have enough water to supply both the Cookeville and Smithville ladder trucks so we wound up using the City of Smithville’s ladder truck.”

The sheriff’s department helped out by making sure the building was clear.

"Sheriff’s department deputies went unit to unit and forced entry to make sure no one was inside. Because of the time of day it was, we were afraid somebody might still be in bed,” Green shared.

While the cause of the conflagration is under investigation, a resident of the building next door said he thought he heard lightning strike the building some time before the blaze.

“The State Fire Marshal has been here, and it’s under investigation because of the high dollar value commercial loss,” said Green.

Members of the Liberty, Temperance Hall, Cookeville Highway, Short Mountain Highway, and Main Stations of the DeKalb County Fire Department, as well as DeKalb EMS.