Brisbane residents woke to the sound of explosions and cries for help this morning, as a fire tore through an inner city boarding house. A nearby aged-care facility was forced into evacuation as the fire spread.

Jessica Rendall reports.

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Emergency services rushed to the fire in Vulture Street in West End which broke out at 6 o’clock this morning.

Alecia Lagos, Neighbour: “I heard a massive crack and then I woke up and looked outside and there was like this massive fire spreading into my room, um so yeah I ran and got my parents and obviously dialled triple zero straight away.”

The property was rapidly engulfed with flames rising metres above its roof.

Plumes of smoke could be seen right across the city.

Firefighters worked hard to get the blaze under control as it was beginning to spread to neighbouring properties.

Around 30 residents were evacuated from a nearby aged-care facility.

Richard Gorey, QFES: “We have fire investigation crews waiting to get into the fire, into the scene, there’s still fire in the roof void area, until we have that completely knocked down, we’ll assess the building structure for instability, if we can put crews in there this may take some to do an investigation until we get that scene safe.”

Firefighters eventually managed to contain the fire and saved a neighbouring heritage listed home from destruction.

Although no tenants were injured in the blaze, they were definitely shaken.

Carter Flanigan, Boarding House Tenant: “Very scary, all my stuff, I had no time to think of what I actually needed, just had to get up and go, left all my stuff inside.”

One firefighter was injured in the blaze and has since been taken to the Princess Alexandra Hospital in a stable condition.

Jessica Rendall, QUT News.