A suspicious fire destroyed a vacant weatherboard home in Dandenong and threatened neighbouring units.
Emergency services arrived at the scene in Benga Avenue about 10.25pm on Saturday 27 August.
CFA experts and Victoria Police arson chemists deemed the fire suspicious.
Neighbour Greg Norton was watching the football when he smelled smoke.
“Then our smoke detectors went off,” he said.
“I looked out the front. I knew it wasn’t coming from our place.
“I could see a lot of smoke out the front door.
“I could see the flickering of the flames.”
Mr Norton yelled out to his wife, who was upstairs, to get out of the house and to move her car from the garage that abutted the burning house.
He called triple-zero about 10.15pm.
“They were here very quickly. The new fire station is just around the corner,” he said.
His home is on a block with three other units.
“The way the wind was blowing was towards the front. We copped most of the smoke,” he said.
“The flames were heading towards our unit as well.
“We’ve got a young Vietnamese couple and they’ve got two very young kids.
“Unit three behind us have a young child, too.
“I went up and banged on the windows to make sure everybody else was out.”
The children got into Mr Norton’s wife’s car to keep warm.
“We watched the firefight take place. We couldn’t do anything else,” he said.
They returned inside their homes about 1am.
“The police remained there all night in the divvy van,” he said.
“They were relieved in the morning.
“The forensic team had been down. Whoever lit it used accelerant so they were coming down to check where it started.”
Mr Norton said the smell of smoke lingered inside his home days later.
“We were all safe and that was the main thing,” he said.
He said Greater Dandenong Council had advised that the owner would need to demolish the home.
“It’s been vacant since we’ve been in there. We’ve been in there since December,” he said.
Greater Dandenong CIU Detective Senior Constable Tony Lavars said police believed squatters had been living in the house.
He urged anyone with information about the fire or who saw anyone in the area before or after the blaze to call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
