“We always want to save everyone. We don’t get in this business to lose, but unfortunately it does happen and it happened today," West Carter County Deputy Chief David Howland said after a woman died in a fire just a few hundred feet from the firehouse early Tuesday.
Howland added that the wood-frame house was “well ahead of us by the time we were called."
The husband, who was injured, tried to save his wife, according to WJHL.
The fire appears to have started in the attic, Howland said, adding that the residents may not have been aware until it was too late.
“The weather conditions and the state of the fire...There was absolutely no chance for us to perform a rescue at that point.”
The cause is under investigation by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.
More than a dozen firefighters from several departments spent hours at the scene Tuesday.
