A fire destroyed a cottage at 189 Wampanoag Road in Potowomut Sunday afternoon. No one was injured. The structure, which the owner said was not habitable, was not occupied at the time.

“My mother saw the flames,” said Paul Alexander, who owns the cottage as well as a house on the property where he lives with his wife and parents. He estimated his mother saw the fire around 4 or 4:10 p.m.

Alexander said he thought it was started by a cigarette butt dropped in dry leaves beside the structure, which was used for recreation. The post-and-beam building had been moved to the site more than 50 years earlier, he said, and it sat up on blocks.

Alexander said the cottage used to be his “book barn” but the books were housed in a separate building now. He said he was a dealer of rare books.

East Greenwich — which is the first responder for the Potowomut section of Warwick — was first on the scene. Nine East Greenwich and Warwick fire vehicles responded to the fire.