Two suspicious fires in Dunedin on Saturday morning, including one which destroyed the Japanese Auto Wreckers Ltd premises near the harbour basin, were possibly lit by the same offenders, police say.
Fire appliances were called to the first fire, at Independent Tyre Specialists, in King Edward St, about 3.05am.
A pile of tyres was well ablaze.
Company spokesman Tony Gorman about 50 tyres were "absolutely disintegrated" and the fence the tyres were stacked next to was damaged, as well as some trees behind it.
He spent most of Saturday cleaning up.
He said he was insured.
Fire appliances from across Dunedin were called to the second fire, about 4.11am, in the building which housed Japanese Auto Wreckers..
The owner of the building, Dean Mason, was woken by a call from police about 6.20am on Saturday.
"It was a very big shock.
"I didn't believe the policeman when he was talking to me early in the morning," Mr Mason said.
By the time he got to the site, the building was all but destroyed.
Southern region fire risk management officer Stu Ide, of Queenstown, said it appeared this fire had started in a pile of tyres sitting outside the building on the corner of Birch and Buller Sts.
There was no "visual sign" of an accelerant being used at this stage, he said.
The building continued to smoulder for most of Saturday, and firefighters were unable to enter it because of the danger of collapse.
However, by late yesterday the building had been partially demolished and cordoned off to make it safe.
Mr Mason said he had owned it for 27 years and, until about three years ago, had also owned the business, Japanese Auto Wreckers.
He believed the building had been constructed in the 1940s and it had previously been used by a window manufacturer.
The roof and doors were renewed about four months ago.
He said the building was insured.
Mr Mason said it would be weeks before he decided what to do with the site, which is within the Dunedin City Council's planned harbourside redevelopment area.
"It's in that funny bit of land that the council are working on to redevelop, so there will be a few questions to ask a few different people this coming week, to see what you can and can't do," he said.
The business owner could not be contacted yesterday.
Det Sgt Hedges said police want to speak to anyone who might have seen suspicious activity in either of the locations about the time the fires started.
Both police and fire service investigations would continue at the site for some days.
