Flames were coming from the roof and windows of a Netherby home as firefighters arrived on Sunday.
It was about 2am as the Ashburton Volunteer Fire Brigade and Methven Volunteer Fire Brigade responded.
Ashburton chief Jeff Marshall said he understood the home had been unoccupied for a couple of weeks. The fire had been called in by a neighbour.
Fire investigators were looking into the cause, which was at this stage undetermined.
The blaze had caused significant damage to the home.
Meanwhile, firefighters were called to a house in Hampstead on Monday about 10.30am, for a kitchen fire.
It had come from an unattended pot on a stove.
Marshall said by the time the occupant who had been cooking noticed the blaze, the house had begun to fill with smoke, as smoke alarms in the home were not operating.
‘‘It’s about checking those smoke alarms on a regular basis and replacing the batteries,’’ Marshall said.
The fire caused some damage in the kitchen, but was out by the time firefighters arrived, the occupant having smothered it with a wet cloth.
Firefighters used a ventilation fan to disperse smoke, and used a thermal imaging camera to make sure the fire had not spread internally.
The fire followed a January callout to an unattended pot on a stove, in the early hours of the morning at Hampstead. In that case, working smoke alarms alerted the occupants.
Marshall said there had also been a further callout to a house in which a smoke alarm was involved, on February 2 at 3.50pm.
Two boys cycling past the house, where no-one was home at the time, had heard a smoke detector going off, so phoned 111.
The brigade attended and inspected from the outside. The home owner soon arrived and let them in. No fire was found.
Nevertheless, the incident showed smoke alarms were good at alerting not only home occupants, but in some cases people outside the home.
‘‘It showed the value of smoke detectors for early indication,’’ Marshall said.
