Fire damages Lower Hutt home

A large fire has damaged a Lower Hutt home.

Emergency services were called to a "well involved" fire in a two-storey Penrose Street house at about 1pm today.

Fire service assistant area commander Matthew Abel said the fire started downstairs and began to spread.

He understood there were three people in the house at the time and all escaped safely.

Six fire trucks attended the scene and the fire was extinguished "pretty quickly".

Mr Abel said initially a nine kilogram LPG cylinder was thought to be involved but that was not the case.

He said the house did not have a working smoke alarm.

The residents of the house were outside but didn't want to comment.

A fire investigator was also at the scene.