![Flames engulf a View St house, in Manapouri, early yesterday. PHOTO: MIKE MOLINEUX](https://www.odt.co.nz/sites/default/files/styles/odt_landscape_extra_large_4_3/public/story/2024/07/manapouri_fire_new.jpg?itok=HElJw1oy)
Police last night said people also remained unaccounted for, many hours after the two-bedroom home in View St had been razed.
The fire started about 3.40am yesterday and police were last night treating its cause as unexplained.
Fiordland Community Board chairwoman Diane Holmes said the community was upset.
"They just want to pull together and see what they can do to help," she said.
"It’s very sad. People are just in shock."
Ms Holmes was unsure of the circumstances of the blaze, but said the community was amazing about coming together to look after one another.
"There will be a lot of care," she said.
Fire investigators and Invercargill CIB were at the property for most of the day to piece together what had happened.
Detective Sergeant Mark McCloy, of Invercargill, said police would work alongside Fire and Emergency New Zealand to complete a scene examination and inquiries in the coming days.
![The house was gutted by the fire. Photo: Toni McDonald](https://www.odt.co.nz/sites/default/files/1000007547.jpg)
One neighbour said Manapouri’s volunteer siren, located metres from his home, woke him at 3.58am.
"Normally when the siren goes off I go back to sleep, but about 6 to 7 minutes later I heard banging outside.
"Then my bedroom lit up bloody orange."
His bedroom was at the back of his house, but the glow from the fire reflected into it off his neighbour’s windows, he said.
It took him a little while to work out it was not his immediate neighbour’s house on fire.
Firefighters were already battling the blaze when he went to investigate.
"I think there must’ve been gas bottles or something because there were some loud explosions and then smaller explosions like ammunition.
"I don’t know what it was, but it was certainly going off."
Manapouri sits on the fringe of Fiordland’s national park and has about 100 homes.
The neighbourhood has a mix of long-term residents in their homes or rental properties, as well as holiday homes and Airbnb rental properties.
— Additional reporting Grant Miller