Six Dekalb County firefighters were being treated for minor injuries Thursday morning as their colleagues continued to battle a massive house fire in south DeKalb.

No one was home when the fire at the two-story brick home on Sandy Lake Drive broke out about 8 a.m.

Elissa Eubanks/eeubanks@ajc.com (ENLARGE)

Michael Madison (left) and brother Jeffrey Harrison after arriving at the house of his father and mother in Lithonia. It burned to the foundation Thursday.

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A relative arriving for a meeting at the home spotted flames and called 911, and about 50 firefighters responded to the scene.

At some point, the second floor collapsed onto the ground floor, then both floors collapsed into the basement, injuring the firefighters. They were rushed to two hospitals with minor injuries, said DeKalb fire Capt. Eric Jackson.

A couple and their three grown sons share the home, built in the mid-1990s and sitting on more than two well-landscaped acres in the Sandstone Shores neighborhood off Panola Road.

Alerted by his cousin, one of the sons, Michael Madison Jr., 37, rushed to the scene.

"Everything is gone," he said with tears streaming down his face. "This was [my mother's] pride and joy. Everything we had was in that house and now it is gone."

Madison said his parents, Michael Madison Sr. and Brenda Madison, were out of town on work and vacation respectively. Both were rushing back home Thursday.

Jackson said it was too early to tell what started the fire.