Police are investigating a suspicious fire that destroyed a house in Eaglehawk yesterday, causing flames to rise up “like a bonfire”, witnesses said.Residents were awoken by loud noises at 3.30am yesterday morning to see flames engulf an unoccupied weatherboard house at 77 Kirkwood Road. Gallery Neighbour Jenna White, 23, said she feared other houses would also catch fire as the radiant heat cracked her window and warped the blinds.“I heard a bang and felt the heat on the window and heard a ‘whoosh’,” she said. “I tried to get everyone away. Luckily the wind was going the other way.‘‘I could feel the heat from the house. It was scary.”It took four fire trucks just over an hour to quell the flames but emergency service workers were still mopping up late yesterday morning.The owner of the house is believed to work interstate and could not be contacted by police.Little more than two brick chimneys remain standing from the wreckage. Yesterday police and fire investigators inspected the remnants of the house, small parts of which were still smoking after yesterday’s heavy rain. Neighbour Neil McCorriston, who lives opposite, said the scale of the fire was “like a bonfire” and drew a crowd out into the street.“All the neighbours were gathered in their pyjamas,” he said. “It went up like a haystack and lit the street up.”It is understood the house was once rented but that no one had lived in it permanently for some time. “It’s been a long time since anyone’s lived there,” Ms White said. Police are treating the fire, in which no one was injured, as suspicious.