A cigarette extinguished in a flower planter has been blamed for a house fire early Saturday morning at a home on Wilson Street in Vic West.

Four people escaped unharmed and tried to extinguish the fire with a garden house before Victoria firefighters arrived on the scene shortly after 2:05 a.m.

Battalion Chief Dave Bicknell said the fire started in a planter and spread up the siding and into the exterior walls of the house, the porch roof and the attic.

Extinguishing cigarettes in planters is not a safe practice, as the peat moss in the soil may smoulder and ignite, Bicknell said.

Damage is estimated at $20,000. The people living in the house were able to return home.

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