A woman was left homeless after a Monday afternoon fire.

Around 2:30 p.m., the Ironton Fire Department got a call about a fire at 407 Chestnut St.

When they arrived on scene, they found a fire in the back of the small brown house.

“It looks like it started back in the kitchen,” said IFD Chief Moose Mahlmeister, adding the department’s fire inspector Jeff Joseph was doing a cause and origin investigation. “But from all indications, it looked like it started in the kitchen area.”

Mahlmeister said the woman was cooking at the time the fire started and the inspector was trying to determine if that was a factor in the fire.

“She was cooking, went into the other room, came back and there was the fire,” he said.

Mahlmeister said there was considerable damage to the kitchen and dining room area, and heat and smoke damage to the front room and bedroom.

He said the firefighters were able to put out the fire quickly.

“They were able to get in there and get a quick know down and then it was just hitting the hot spot and tearing down the ceiling where the fire had breached it,” Mahlmeister said.

Gas and electric was turned off to the house as a precaution as the house was rendered uninhabitable by the fire damage.

“There was damage in the ceiling in the kitchen and the dining room area, so the electric was compromised,” Mahlmeister said. “We want to make sure we don’t have anything rekindle because of the electric.”

This is the fourth house fire in Ironton since Thanksgiving.