MONMOUTH — An early morning fire destroyed a South Monmouth Road home Wednesday.

Monmouth Assistant Fire Chief Ken Palleschi said the call came in at 7:15 a.m. about a fire at 531 S. Monmouth Road. When he arrived first on the scene he observed smoke coming from the building and active fire from a rear window.

“The homeowner was not at home, she was at work at the time,” he said.

There were no injuries, but Palleschi said the homeowner “lost a couple of pets.”

“I would say, because of the smoke damage, it would be a total loss,” he said, adding that a cause has not been determined but that it is not suspicious “at all.”

In addition to Monmouth’s department, firefighters also responded from Winthrop, Leeds, Green and Wales. Palleschi said the scene was cleared around 10 a.m.

“We were fortunate with all our mutual aid people, we had a very good crew show up,” he said. “Normally at that time of day during the week we would have manpower issues, but today we didn’t seem to have that issue.”