Two townhouse residents remain to be taken into account after a two-storey building went up in flames.
Emergency services were called to the house on Railway Street in Teralba, south-west Newcastle, at around 4.15am on Thursday to reports of a house on fire.
About forty firefighters arrived on the scene to extinguish the raging blaze, but were unable to locate two of the residents.
It is not known whether they were in the building at the time.
Fire and Rescue NSW Acting Chief Inspector Mathew Sigmund said the service is “working with police to locate them”.
Two residents of a Newcastle townhouse that went up in flames on Thursday morning have yet to be identified after around 50 firefighters responded to the scene (stock image)
Footage of the incident showed the house almost completely engulfed in flames, causing one of the walls to collapse.
Mr Sigmund said firefighters were able to enter the bottom floor of the building to try to find the residents, but had to flee shortly afterwards.
“They were met with extreme fire,” he said, according to police Newcastle Herald.
“They reached level two but unfortunately had to withdraw due to internal structural collapse.”
Other residents of the house were able to be evacuated despite the intense fire, while neighboring houses were also damaged.
The police are investigating the cause of the fire.
More to come.