PHILIP HOLMES/FOR THE EXPRESS When firefighters first pulled up on the scene, the home was engulfed in flames and the roof as well as the second floor had collapsed, one fire officer said.

JERSEY SHORE — Flames consumed a very old vacant farmhouse Tuesday morning on Fillman Road in a remote area of Watson Township, about eight miles north of the borough.

The two-story structure at 838 Fillman Road was engulfed in flames when firefighters arrived about 7:40 a.m., Shane Newvine, assistant chief for Jersey Shore EMS and in charge at the scene, said.

There were no reports of injuries, and the cause of the fire remains under investigation.

“We could see a ball of fire at the end of the lane,” said one firefighter, referring to where Tombs Run Road intersects with the very narrow two-lane Fillman Road.

“The roof and second floor had already collapsed to the first floor when we arrived,” Newvine said. It wasn’t long before sections of the two floors landed in the basement, he added.

Heavy smoke was visible about a mile from the scene, he said. The name of the property owner was not known.

Numerous fire companies from Lycoming and Clinton counties were dispatched to the multiple-alarm blaze because tankers were needed for water since the ponds in the area were frozen.

Newvine declared the fire under control about 8:10 a.m., but he anticipated crews would be on the scene for quite a while. “There is a lot of overhauling that has to be done,” Newvine said, meaning that firefighters will spend much of the morning tearing apart the rubble and dousing hot spots so that the blaze doesn’t rekindle.

This was the second day in a row that Jersey Shore area firefighters were dispatched to a structure fire. On Monday afternoon, they were sent to a house fire in the 200 block of Locust Street in the borough, where flames from a burning pile of trash in the yard spread to the exterior of a home.