Police investigate arson link in ChCh fire

Fire crews arrived at the burning Christchurch house at 3.45am today. Photo / File

Police are investigating a possible arson link between a torched car, a nearby house fire which a sleeping family managed to flee, and another attempted blaze at a house in the same Christchurch suburb overnight.

A family woke in time to escape the large inferno which engulfed their two-storey house in Parklands at about 2.30am.

The Cottonwood St house was consumed by flames when four fire crews arrived at 2.45am.

There were no injuries.

It is being treated as suspicious by police and fire investigators.

Seventeen minutes earlier, just 100m around the corner at Queenspark Dr, fire crews were called to extinguish a car on fire up a driveway.

By the time the fire crew got there, the owner had managed to put it out.

The car fire is also being treated as suspicious, Southern Fire Service shift manager Andrew Norris said.

And later this morning police got a call from another Cottonwood St property owner to find a fire had been attempted outside their house.

Mr Norris said the fire never took off and went out by itself. The homeowners only became aware of it when they got up this morning, he said.

Police and fire safety investigators are at the multiple scenes and investigating the three suspicious fires to "see if they are related", Mr Norris said.