"We were just getting in the front door."
She smelled smoke, and also saw it in The Terminus apartment building, formerly the Gresham Hotel building.
She noticed the Tart Tin boutique bakery, beside the apartment doorway, which was closed, was "filled with smoke" and "there was smoke billowing out".
Wasting no time she rang Fire and Emergency New Zealand (Fenz) on her cellphone at 6.19pm. Five Dunedin appliances and a ladder appliance rushed to the scene.
Fenz shift manager Mau Barbara, of the Southern Communications Centre in Christchurch, said six firefighters wearing breathing apparatus immediately entered the bakery cafe area and launched an "offensive internal attack", quickly extinguishing the fire.
"They went straight for it," he said.
It is thought the small fire may have been caused by a malfunctioning oven.
Antonia Wood, who owns the building with her partner Steve Macknight, said it had not been damaged and the apartments’ occupants were able to return last night after the smoke was dispersed.
