A 5,000-square-foot home on Carlin Bay on Lake Coeur d'Alene was completely destroyed Tuesday night by fire.

Doug Allman, East Side Fire District chief, said the home is near the intersection of Highway 97 and Carlin Cove Road.

A neighbor called to report the fire around 8:30 p.m. after hearing some crackling sounds, then looked outside to see the house nearly engulfed.

Allman arrived about five minutes after receiving a page to find flames pouring from the home.

Large sparks were flying, and high winds were starting spot fires across the highway and up on a nearby hillside.

"The wind was throwing big embers all over the place," Allman said.

Nobody was home at the time. The owners live in California, and declined to comment about the fire.

There were no injuries reported fighting the fire, Allman said.

Investigators will begin looking for a cause of the blaze today.

The burned home is surrounded by 100-foot-tall trees.

"Some of them were pretty scorched and probably won't live," he said.

There are houses both to the north and south of the home. The home to the south suffered some damage to some wooden steps and a tree house, and a large propane tank was stressed, but its venting system released propane and prevented an explosion, Allman said.

"We put a lot of water on it," he said.

Allman hasn't been able to fully evaluate any possible damage to the house to the north, but he suspected there might be some blistered siding.

The East Side Fire District used three engines, three tenders, two brush trucks and a fire boat to fight the blaze. The district received help from Kootenai County Fire and Rescue, which sent another engine and fire boat.

"The fireboats had a struggle because there were some pretty good waves on the lake," he said.

He had about 15 volunteers from his district fighting the blaze, with another half dozen firefighters from the county.

The Idaho Department of Lands also showed up to help later.

Allman started releasing firefighters around 2:30 a.m. Wednesday.