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Ricky Wilson / Stuff
Six teams of firefighters were dispatched to a fire in a commercial building on Heathcote St in Woolston around 1.20 a.m. Sunday. (File photo).
A building has been “badly damaged” and some nearby residents were evacuated after a morning fire in Christchurch.
New Zealand Fire and Emergencies duty shift manager Jonathan Ditmer said the fire occurred in a commercial building on Heathcote St in Woolston around 1.20am on Sunday.
He said that initially two teams from Woolston and central Christchurch were dispatched and found the building “well engulfed in fire.”
A second alarm was raised and four more crews were dispatched from Spreydon, Central Christchurch and one specialized crew.
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The approximately 375-square-meter building was badly damaged. It was understood that no one was at the scene at the time the fire broke out, Ditmer said.
However, police evacuated residents from surrounding properties as a precaution while crews battled the blaze, he said.
Crews stopped the fire shortly before 3 a.m. and a team remained on the scene monitoring critical points shortly after 8 a.m.
Ditmer said it was not yet known how it started and that a fire investigator would be on the scene later Sunday morning to determine the cause.
No other property was damaged and no one was injured in the fire, he said.
A police spokeswoman said police were dispatched to the scene to control traffic and conduct some evacuations shortly after 1:24 a.m. M.
He said the first indications were that the fire was not being treated as suspicious.
