‘Horrendous’ fire guts family home
A woman on Mt Roskill’s Yeats Way woke to a ‘‘horrendous noise’’ and looked to see her neighbour’s house ‘‘exploding’’.
Helen Eastabrook said she could feel the heat from the fire from the second storey of her home after the blaze started about 2am on Wednesday.
‘‘We heard voices but it sounded like teenagers having a party. [The sound] was exploding glass.’’
A Fire Service spokeswoman said eight fire crews, and several other support vehicles, were called to the blaze at the Mt Roskill property.
The occupants of the two storey home escaped unharmed, she said.
Firefighters had to work quickly to stop the fire spreading to adjoining properties along Yeats Way.
Eastabrook didn’t know the family who had lived there several years but was ‘‘glad they’re all OK’’.
Later on Wednesday, extended family gathered to comfort their distressed relatives surveying their stoved-in two storey home.
Two cars parked in the driveway of the property were also destroyed by the fierce blaze.
Firefighters on scene dampening-down the blaze said it was likely a digger would be needed to reach the fire’s still white-hot centre buried under charred rubble.