Fire crews were called to the fire in the wall of the Baker St house around 4.45pm yesterday.
One of the neighbours was helping suppress the fire by directing water from her garden hose along the wall.
Residents gathered to try and help as they witnessed smoke billowing our from the roof of the house.
‘‘I was just at home and saw all this smoke, I just thought ‘oh my gosh, what’s burning?" one of the neighbours said at the scene.
The daughter of the homeowner said there was minimal damage to the building, just some smoke damage.
‘Mum was home so she was able to alert the neighbours and get the pets out of the house - that was important to her, to make sure they were safe.
‘‘Pets were taken to the neighbour's house. It's a caring community, we’re very thankful.’’
A Fire and Emergency spokesman said crews from Lookout Point and St Kilda were backed up by crews from the Dunedin station.
They found a fire that had gotten into the wall space of the home.
Firefighters managed to suppress the fires at around 5.30pm and the property was handed over to the property owner around 7pm.
‘‘It did take quite a bit to get through to make sure the fire was fully extinguished in the wall space and to make sure it wasn't going to spread,
‘‘Our crews did some exposure protection as well as some external fire attack,’’ the spokesman said.
