KEY POINTS:
Two families were lucky to escape with their lives after two house fires in Wanganui early today.
Senior Station Officer Craig Gardiner said services were stretched this morning and brigades from outside the area had to be called in to help fight the two fires.
Mr Gardiner said they were called to the first house fire on Somerset Road in the suburb of Springvale at 4.30am.
Two adults and a child were in the house when the fire broke out, but managed to escape, he said.
A specialist fire investigator has been called out to find the cause of the fire.
Crews had just returned to the station when they were called out to a second house fire, believed to be suspicious, on Kiwi Street in Wanganui east, at 5.45am, Mr Gardiner said.
Two adults and a child were also in the house during the blaze but were able to escape uninjured.
Mr Gardiner said at this stage it did not look like the fires were related in any way.
Neither house had a fire alarm and both families were woken by sounds of their possessions being destroyed by the fire.
"In both cases families with children involved had managed to barely escape with their lives.
"They're very very lucky."
Mr Gardiner said a $10 smoke alarm and $3 battery per year was "the cheapest insurance you're going to get on your life".
The houses were mostly destroyed, he said.
In another incident, a fire broke out at Carterton's Belvedere Hall at in thge early hours of this morning.
Firefighters arrived at the Belvedere Road property, 10km north of Carterton, at 12.50am.
Central fire communications shift manager David Meikle said nobody was inside the two-storey building during the blaze.
Eight pumps and three specialist appliances worked until about 4am getting the fire under control and crews were still at the scene dampening down hotspots.
Fire Safety investigators were at the scene.
- NZPA
