A man was killed after being trapped in a fire at his home in south Belfast today.
His body was discovered by fire crews in a top floor bedroom on a three-storey terraced house on Rugby Avenue.
The victim, believed to be in his late 40s, lived at the address with his sister who escaped the blaze and raised the alarm just after 2am.
Jim Boyd, of the Northern Ireland Fire Service, said it was so ferocious that rescue teams were beaten back by the flames.
"Due to the intensity of the fire we had difficulty getting up to the second floor," he said.
"Unfortunately by then the male occupant was dead."
Investigators were today examining the wreckage of the house to find out what caused the fire to start on the first floor of the building.
