Two fires deliberately lit near Cromwell homes early on Saturday created a dangerous situation and such behaviour needed to be "nipped in the bud", police said yesterday.
Police are appealing for information about the fires in Neplusultra St which cut power and phone services to about six homes.
"They were lit very close to dwellings when people were asleep and it was a very dangerous situation," Senior Constable John Chambers said.
"We're concentrating on this to get it sorted out and nipped in the bud."
The Cromwell Fire Brigade was called at 1.30am to fires outside two homes a few doors apart.
Shrubs and tussocks out the front of one property were set alight, scorching a steel fence and destroying an electrical control power box which also contained a phone line router.
Tussocks planted across the width of the second property, between the front of the property and the footpath, were also burnt.
