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Police are investigating a series of suspicious blazes that stretched fire crews in Invercargill yesterday.
Firefighters received 11 callouts between midnight and 7pm - including four suspicious blazes and three false alarms.
Police were working with the Fire Service to establish whether the fires were connected, Invercargill CIB Detective Fred Shandley said.
The first fire, around midnight, destroyed a hayshed on Severn Street while the second blaze destroyed a storage shed on Bluff Road around 3.30am.
A home in Bain St was the third property hit after wood against an exterior wall was set alight.
In the fourth blaze, an uninsured business in the South City Mall on Elles Road was damaged after a refrigeration unit on the roof was set on fire between 6am and 9am.
Mr Shandley said it was not clear if the fourth fire was linked to the first three.
"If you look at the time and location there is more similarity between the (first three) fires," he told the Southland Times.
- NZPA
