'Autistic' man dies in house fire

Neighbours have described horrific scenes at an Auckland house fire which killed one man and seriously burned another on Friday night.

Firefighters raced to the two-storey house in Madigan Pl, Glendene, about 8.30pm but were unable to save a man believed to have been living in a ground floor flat. Another man was taken to North Shore Hospital with serious burns.

Neighbour Scott Jamieson ran to the house after hearing a loud bang and described the scene that met him as "horrid".

"The whole house was engulfed and there was somebody outside who was burned pretty bad."

Soon after he arrived at the scene, a Pacific Island man began trying to fight the fire with a hose.

"He was saying that he lived there and his brother was autistic." Another neighbour said a police officer told them two males lived in the flat and that one was autistic. Police would not comment yesterday.

A Fire Service spokesperson said the cause of the blaze would be investigated by police.