Firefighters contain blaze at home belonging to 'hoarder' on Blazey Street in Richmond

Firefighters have brought a fierce fire under control that seriously damaged a home reportedly occupied by a hoarder in Richmond.

Crews used breathing apparatus to battle the blaze at a single-storey weatherboard house on Blazey Street.

It reportedly sent smoke billowing through the inner-Melbourne suburb and across the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

The house reportedly belongs to a man in his 70s who was at home when the fire started, but escaped uninjured after the fire broke out just before 9.30am.

Around 20 firefighters were called to the scene to fight the blaze, which caused serious damage to the home before it was extinguished just before 10am.

Crews managed to stop the fire spreading before it caused any damage to neighbouring properties.

The Metropolitan Fire Brigade (MFB) said the front yard of the property was packed with items such as trolleys, rubbish bins and wheelbarrows which hampered efforts to contain the blaze.

"Fires in hoarding properties are usually more intense, they are larger, they require more of our resources,'' Mr Purcell said.

"A normal house fire will contain to the room of origin almost 90-plus per cent of the time but a hoarding property will usually breach the room of origin which means it starts to spread to the rest of the house."

The cause of the fire is under investigation, with an amount of asbestos reportedly identified at the scene.

Crews were being decontaminated for their safety.