Cause of a multi-alarm fire on Sunday afternoon, Sept. 5 remains under investigation, with the blaze causing extensive damage to a single family home in the 18000 block of Van Allen Road.

Escalon Fire Chief Rick Mello said the home was on the southwest corner of Highway 120 and Van Allen.

“It looked as though it was a converted tank house and there could have been some homeless activity,” Mello said of the home.

There were no people inside the house at the time of the fire, the chief added.

The call came in shortly before 12:45 p.m. Sunday and crews arriving on scene found the home to be fully involved in flames.

“We had mutual aid, an engine and a Battalion Chief from Ripon, a water tender from Farmington and a water tender from Collegeville,” Mello said. “We treated it as an abandoned structure, there was a heavy fuel load inside and it wasn’t safe to enter.”

Once they determined no one was living in the home, they focused their efforts on a defensive attack, keeping the flames from spreading to any other nearby structures on the property.

Damage was extensive, with Mello noting that the home was basically “a total loss.”

There were no injuries to firefighters and there were no civilians on the scene.

After the fire was brought under control, crews remained on site for several hours to put out hot spots. The last Escalon unit coming back into service after fighting the Sunday blaze returned to the station about 1 a.m. Monday morning, said Mello.