The holiday weekend started off really tough for a South Bend woman. Vicki Shepard came home from a brief trip to the store Saturday at 10 a.m. to find massive flames deteriorating her house.

Shepard lives on Pine Road just off of Lincolnway near the South Bend Regional Airport.

"There's a lot of smoke. Could be seen for miles away, heavy black smoke," explains Battalion Chief Robert Wood, Clay Fire Territory. "The house sits so far off the road that it was very well-involved before a passerby actually found the fire and called it in."

"The homeowner came in just about the same time we called 911," explains Deb Gorski, the passerby.

Deb and her son Troy were driving by the house when they noticed the fire and quickly called 911. Moments later the homeowner, Vicki Shepard, arrived home. Deb and Troy comforted Shepard until other family members got there. They held Shepard back from running into the house for her pets. Nobody was home at the time of the fire and Shepard’s three dogs made it out safely. She also has many cats, and while some of them were spotted and safe, Shepard isn’t sure yet if all of them made it out.

"You don't even realize how much pets are part of your family until you lose them in something like this. We just held onto her until the fire department got here and that's all we could," Deb explains. "Things can be replaced. People can't. And that's the most important thing."

"I'm just glad the home owner's really safe and her family came to help her through it,” Deb’s son, Troy, adds. “I'd be distraught if it was my house."

Fire officials say they don’t know how the fire started. They say Shepard told them she left food cooking on the stove when she left for the store. Investigators say they don’t know yet if that has anything to do with the cause of the fire.

Fire officials also say if the house had a monitored fire alarm system they would have learned about the fire earlier and may have been able to respond before the fire spread so badly. Crews say the house is set so far back off the road, it wasn’t until Deb and Troy drove by that the flames were spotted.