I remember being a kid not old enough to be in kindergarten and watching the house across the street burn down from my bedroom window. It was an old construction and pretty much all the firefighters did was keep it contained so it didn't spread to the house to the left and right of it.
By the time the fire was "out" it just looked like a huge fire pit, nothing was standing. Nobody died though.
It was mildly unsettling walking around the place where a house was and finding the random thing that somehow didn't get burned to nothing. I remember looking at a wooden spoon and being kind of amazed.
Good luck to your people!