KEY POINTS:
A fire is still smouldering in a 130-year-old building in central Dunedin today, after keeping firefighters busy overnight.
The fire service was called to the four-storey building on Dunedin's Jetty Street at 1.40am.
Dunedin's deputy chief fire officer Trevor Tillyard said the building, built in 1879, had multiple occupancies, including accommodation, a dance studio, car storage area and small businesses.
No one was in the building when it caught fire, and firefighters were able to contain the blaze, preventing it spreading to surrounding buildings.
Mr Tillyard said firefighters had been unable to locate the source of the fire and were forced out of the building by the heat, meaning they had to fight it externally.
It was still smouldering this morning, and building engineers were heading to the site to assess the damage before anyone went back inside, he said.
The roof had fallen and the top storey was destroyed, but the rest of the building appeared to be quite stable, he said.
- NZPA
