Fire destroyed the home of former Virginia Delegate Harvey Morgan and his wife, Mary Helen, early Saturday morning. Located on Dormer Oakes Drive in Saluda, all that was left of the house afterward was blackened framework.

Morgan said that he had been working at his computer late before taking a shower sometime after midnight. When he stepped out of the shower, he smelled smoke, awoke his wife, and called 911. The two went outside—he in a pair of jeans and she in a bathrobe—to find the utility room in flames.

Although he tried to attack the fire with a water hose, Morgan said the breaker had turned off and the water pump wasn’t working, so all the couple could do was watch the house burn and wait for firefighters to arrive.

Chief Ray Burch of the Middlesex Volunteer Fire Department said that when firefighters arrived at the home at 12:55 a.m., the entire second floor of the house was in flames. It collapsed shortly afterward, igniting the first floor.

Ten fire tru...