A woman who fell asleep while cooking could have suffered "severe consequences" had she not woken in time, firefighters say.
The Gonville woman, who was the house's only occupant, went to sleep while she had food cooking in the kitchen.
Firefighters could not say why she had gone to sleep but something woke her in time to notice the fire.
Emergency services were called to the property at 10pm and got the fire under control before it did too much damage.
"The fire wasn't a bad fire but it could have had severe consequences," fire risk management officer Bob Wills-Rawlings said.
"Never leave cooking fires unattended."
Castlecliff had the highest number of total fire service call-outs in the past month ending February 15, with 21 out of 86 for all of Wanganui, including surrounding areas.
Wanganui also had 10 vegetation fires over the past month.
A house fire started by a heat gun on Sunday was also a good reminder for people to be careful what they used the guns on, fire service assistant area manager Ian King said. "The issue is what they have been used for," Mr King said. "When you think of Wanganui, the housing style is very old. They are burning old paint off very old timber."
People using heat guns needed to be careful how they used them, he said.
"It's an easy way to do it but it's a dangerous way to do it."
Mr Wills-Rawlings also reminded people to finish using the heat gun "well before the day's end" so that if a fire was to flare up later it would not be at night.
The suburb with the highest number of structure fires in the past month was Tawhero, with three fires out of eight. A structure fire is defined as "any property fire" where damage is caused. The most common call-out type was for miscellaneous incidents, which could include anything minor such as a cat up a tree. Wanganui had 20 miscellaneous call-outs in the past month. The second most common call-out type was for false alarms, at 17.