An iconic bungalow at Kwashiebu near Kwashieman in Accra was left largely standing on its bare structures after fire razed down the house last night during an unexpected blackout.

Pending official fire report, eye witnesses told myjoyonline.com that a lighted candle triggered the outbreak in the 4-bedroom house which also served as a warehouse for cosmetics, candles and some inflammable substances.

"Our [initial]  assesment is that the whole house of full of candles and candle fires are very very difficult to put down" Assistant Divisional Officer P. K. Mensah in charge of rescue service told myjoyonline's Isaac Essel.

 Fierce and forceful, the fire began after 9pm local time (21:00 GMT) kept the entire neighbourhood and the fire service awake until 11pm late into the night.

Three fire tenders drenched a plot of land -- about 80 feet by 50 feet -- but still needed reinforcements after 11pm.

The neighbours stood awestruck as firefighters were seen in dangerous places in the building trying to put out the fire. A resident Fati Saka, told the reporter that they were sleeping when an elderly man alerted them to a fire.

The bungalow was home to about 10 people, she said. The owner of the building is not in the country.

Fati said this morning that they had lost everything. Billows of smoke could still be seen and some residents said they had to resort to using buckets of gutter water to stub out flickers of fire this morning. The neighbourhood is without running water.

It was a night of misery and madness at what some residents say was a fire outbreak whose remote cause was another unexpected black-out.