a house near mine was demolished today: it was old and rundown, and likely had not been lived in for years.
It took two men with an excavator less than a day to destroy the whole house and put the pieces in dumpsters (only three were needed, as far as I could tell). They were halfway through it by 12:30 and there was nothing left but a pile of bricks that had been the chimney stack and a few chunks of concrete foundation by 4 PM.
A fire would take longer and leave more remains . . . .