Two people have been taken to hospital after a house fire in Hillcrest, Hamilton, this morning.
Fire and Emergency was alerted to a fire at a two-storey residential home on Fenwick Cres at 9.02am.
A spokesperson said the fire was “well involved” upon the arrival of four firetrucks.
“The fire was contained to one property and it has been extinguished since.”
Hato Hone St John also received a call, at 9.14am.
A St John spokesperson said they took two people to Waikato Hospital with one in serious condition and the other in a moderate condition.
When Waikato Herald arrived at the scene around 9.35am, black smoke could be seen from the road and two firetrucks were blocking the entrance of Fenwick Cres.
A resident living near the scene, Seth, who did not want his surname to be used, said he was about to drop his kids to school when we saw “thick black smoke” in the clouds.
“I thought, ‘That’s not a bonfire’, and raced to drop off my kids and come back to see if everything was okay,” Seth told the Waikato Herald.
Another neighbour, who did not want to be named, said she lived in front of the affected property and was outside cleaning when she heard a “loud bang”.
“I was yelling for everyone to get out and called emergency services.”
The neighbour said she rang the services as the tenants of the house that caught on fire had to leave their phones behind.
A Fire and Emergency spokesperson said the cause of the fire remained unknown and a fire investigator was still at the scene to determine the cause.
Malisha Kumar is a multimedia journalist based in Hamilton. She joined the Waikato Herald in 2023 after working for Radio 1XX in Whakatāne.
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Police are seeking dashcam footage of the vehicle involved in the incident.