SUMMIT TWP — Teamwork and cooperation between two fire departments are credited with preventing a house fire Wedneday afternoon from causing any major damage.

Nadine Wise, who has rented the home at 170 Freeport Road for more than a decade, said she returned to the empty house at 1:48 p.m. to find the second floor bedroom area filled with a black smoke.

“When I walked in, the smoke detector was going off,” she said. “I don’t know what happened.”

Wise, 47, called 9-1-1, and firefighters from the city and South Butler quickly arrived, ousting the flames and keeping the damage to what Herman Volunteer Fire Department Chief Rob McClafferty described as “minimal. Mainly smoke and water damage.”

McClafferty didn’t immediately put a price tag on the damage, and he did not yet rule on the cause of the fire. However, he said it initially appears that it might have been electrical.

“This could have been a lot worse,” McClafferty said, crediting the mutual aid departments with a fast response time and good work. “They did an outstanding job. I can’t give them enough credit.”