The Remains of a House (not my house!)

If you live in a land of forests it seems logical to warm your hour house by burning wood. At the same time, in a house made of wood, it is obviously very important to keep those stoves, ranges and fires away from the structure of your building. So brick chimneys are a very important part of your structure and need to be well built. They are so well built that when disaster strikes and the wooden house does burn down these elegant structures are what is left when all else has turned to ruin. 
If you look carefully you'll see only bricks, metal, and a few tiles. Everything else, the walls, the floor, the insulation (sawdust), the doors, the windows, and the basic roof has gone. The fire converted all those things to ash and scattered the ash into the air
The last time we drove along this road there was a very large house here, looking a little past it's best but still lived in. Now this is all that is left. I wonder what the story is?
We probably would have heard if anyone had died so I guess everyone got out, or they were away when the house caught fire.  A wooden house burns so comprehensively that there are very few clues left as to how it caught fire.