Authorities are working to determine if a house that was badly damaged in a fire in eastern Bay of Plenty overnight was occupied.
Four fire trucks from Ōpōtiki, Hicks Bay and Te Araroa were called to Waihau Bay at around 3.20am.
A Fire and Emergency NZ spokesperson said a number of people are unaccounted for.
A police spokesperson said: "It is unclear whether the address was occupied at the time of the fire, and work is underway to locate known occupants of the address."
As of 6.30am, the fire was still not out, and crews were removing parts of the building to access hotspots.
Police asked the public to avoid the area.
Meanwhile in Timaru, an early-morning house fire is being treated as suspicious.
Emergency services were called to the blaze at a single-storey house on Seaview Road at around 3.45am.
FENZ said nobody was in the house at the time, and the fire did not threaten any other properties.
The blaze was extinguished at 6am.
It was being treated as suspicious, and a fire investigator would return to the scene at first light to determine the cause.
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