The Donna Hall residence at 6891 FM 580 East was destroyed by fire Tuesday morning. A truck driver passing by during the early stages of the blaze rushed to help the resident escape her house, and other motorists also helped Mrs. Hall get to safety. PHOTO BY GEORGE HARMON Fire destroyed a house eight miles east of Lampasas Tuesday morning, but the owner of the residence made it to safety.

Just moments earlier, a Bartlett truck driver who thought his vehicle had struck something on the road stopped to check one of his tires. In the process, he discovered smoke coming from the residence nearby on FM 580 East.

Donna Hall, owner of the brick veneer house, was “trying to get out of the back of her house,” said Joshua Hightower, the driver of a westbound 1994 Peterbilt “belly dump” truck. Hightower earlier had taken a load of crushed granite to Gatesville and was en route to Kingsland to pick up another load.

Said Hightower: “I helped her get away from the house, while I was talking with 911.”

At roughly the same time, an eastbound vehicle -- in which George Harmon of Waco, owner of an area plumbing business, and Jeffrey Pritchett, a Kingsland plumber, were riding -- spotted smoke from several miles away.

Harmon commented to Pritchett that perhaps someone was doing a controlled burn or was burning tires.

“He immediately said, ‘No, that’s a house,’” Harmon recalled. Pritchett formerly served as a firefighter in the military.

Moments later, the two men stopped near the residence and helped Mrs. Hall get away from the burning house. “She said she had six oxygen bottles,” Harmon said.

The men helped Mrs. Hall to a Lampasas County Sheriff’s Department vehicle manned by Deputy Greg Chapman, so she could get away from the smoke, flames and heat.

Fire was shooting out the east side of the residence. Then, Harmon said, “We started hearing, one by one, the oxygen bottles [exploding].”

He praised the work of Lampasas firemen. “I have a fresh appreciation for these guys,” Harmon said, as firefighters a short distance away continued to extinguish the blaze.

“They are going this way [running toward fires] when everybody else is going this way [running away from fires].”

Donnie Bell, a service lineman with Hamilton County Electric Co-operative, said workers “killed” a transformer, cut down a live wire, then re-energized the transformer so electricity could be restored to a barn near the house.

Lampasas Fire Chief Terry Lindsey and County Fire Marshal Gene Harrison -- who investigated the blaze -- termed the house “a total loss.” The fire was caused by “careless smoking,” Harrison said.

A call about the fire, which began in a bedroom, was received at 9:50 a.m.

As the resident escaped the burning house, she reportedly fell as she made her way outside, through a sliding-glass door, family members said.

Hightower, the driver of the truck, saw her lying on a porch and pulled her away from the house, Harrison said.

Inside the house were oxygen bottles, which Mrs. Hall used for assistance in breathing. When oxygen escaped from the containers, it intensified the heat of the fire, Harrison said.

Capital Ambulance took Mrs. Hall to Rollins Brook Community Hospital, where she was treated for smoke inhalation and hospitalized overnight for observation.