FORT SUMNER, N.M. -- A small -town rumor that sparked world -wide interest about a mouse burning down a house has been found to be untrue.

After 81-year-old Chano Mares's house burned down Saturday in Fort Sumner, news services picked up the quirky story.

"Flaming Mouse Burns Down House" read the headline over an Associated Press story that appeared on WSBTV.com, for example.

According to the initial report, Mares threw the critter in a pile of burning leaves near his home, but it ran back to the house on fire.

A local firefighter said the mouse ran to just beneath a window and the flames spread up the window and throughout the house.

All contents of the home were destroyed, but no one was injured.

Interest in fires has been high lately. Unseasonably dry and windy conditions have charred more than 53,000 acres and destroyed 10 homes in southeastern New Mexico in recent weeks.

The mouse story, however, has been doused by Mares.

"It's really humorous more than anything that a mouse burned down the house," he told KOAT-TV in Albuquerque. The mouse was dead when it hit the burning leaves.

Mares said he trapped and killed the critter and tossed it on the fire.

The flames, he said, probably reached his house because they were driven by high winds.

Capt. Jim Lyssy of the Fort Sumner Fire Department said the rumor probably got started because there was "a little too much excitement" at the time of the fire.

Mares lost everything -- and has no insurance -- but the mouse story still makes him smile.

"I started laughing, and I'll be laughing from now on," he said. "It's silly."