CONCORD - A 93-year-old woman, recuperating in a nursing facility but who expected to return within days to her Haig Street residence, has no home to return to now after a fire destroyed it Thursday.

Family members said yesterday they are trying to keep the bad news from Gwendolyn L. Chapman. Her 10 Haig St. Cape Cod-style home was destroyed by flames which, family members said, started after a Comcast worker drilled a hole in the basement for a new Internet line.

"He checked in the basement to see where the cable line went in," said Carole Cummings of Loudon, whose mother is Chapman's sister-in-law. "When he came out, he knew where to drill the hole and there was a spark and within seconds smoke was coming from the basement."

A call to Comcast for comment was not immediately returned.

Fire Chief Dan Andrus said a Comcast employee reported the blaze about 9 a.m. but as of yesterday morning it was too soon to know how and where the fire started. He said investigators will be talking to the utility worker.

Cummings said she had been in the house all week cleaning it and getting it ready for Chapman's return. A meeting, she said, was held Thursday morning to decide when Chapman would return home but then the fire broke out.

A granddaughter, according to Cummings and the fire chief, was living there but was not home when the fire started.

Beverly Briand of Bow, Chapman's sister-in-law and Cummings' mother, said Chapman is "the sweetest woman who you would ever want to meet." Briand comforted her daughter as she teared up and choked back a sob when thinking about the elderly woman no longer having her home.

Andrus said flames were coming out the rear of the building and billowing from the second floor window when the first firefighters arrived on the scene.

All 85 city firefighters, both on and off duty, were called in to extinguish the blaze, along with fire crews from at least 10 other communities.

Initially, firefighters entered the home for an interior attack but quickly were pulled out as the flames intensified. Fire crews then used ladder trucks to pour water on the flames and eventually extinguish it.

Two firefighters were overcome by heat and, dizzy and nauseous, were taken by ambulance to Concord Hospital for treatment of heat exhaustion, said Andrus. Both are expected to be OK.