FREEPORT — A blaze that destroyed a home last weekend is considered “suspicious,” but the cause remains undetermined, according to authorities.

“I can't rule out an arson,” Trooper DuWayne Baird, a deputy fire marshal, said Friday. “But at this point, because of the extent of the damage, I can't say what caused the fire.”

The home, owned by Gregory Shoop, was insured. Baird ruled the house a “total loss,” and pegged the damage at $150,000.

Baird said Freeport police are assisting in his investigation. The insurance adjuster is also conducting an independent investigation.

The one-story home on Washington Street was being remodeled due to a fire four months earlier when flames engulfed it a second time Jan. 19, fire officials said. A neighbor called 911 around 4 a.m. after seeing the fire.

The home, which also had a basement, had been unoccupied since the first fire Sept. 9. The cause of that fire has also not been determined, but Baird acknowledged that he could not rule out careless smoking.

The latest fire tore through the house, which had no drywall ceiling. Flames were shooting up the open trusses for the roof framing when fire crews arrived to battle the blaze, said Chief Tom Sweeny Jr. with the Freeport Volunteer Fire Department.

Baird said he believed the fire started on the first floor, not the basement.

A renovation crew had been periodically working on the house to repair damages from the first fire, authorities said. No work, however, had been done since Jan. 15.

Temporary electrical service to the house had been shut off at the panel box, Baird said earlier, noting that “I believe at this point nothing was energized in the house.”

Anyone with information about the fire is asked to call state police in Butler at 724-284-8100 or Freeport police at 724-295-4897.