A mother received a distressing phone call from her son in the middle of the night that the neighbour's house was engulfed in flames.
The fire tore through the house in Losinga Road in King's Lynn around 4.30am on Sunday morning and a body was discovered inside the property.
The blaze ripped through the roof and first floor of the house which took firefighters more than two hours to put out.
A woman who lives next door to the property with her husband and two teenage children told of her shock after hearing news of the fatal fire.
The family, who did not want to be identified, were away for the weekend with only the 17-year-old son staying behind in the family home.
The mother said she received a call from her son at around 5am on Sunday morning as the smoke billowed through the roof.
'First I thought of bad things,' she said. 'With the fire and water getting everywhere.
'We were 120 miles away, when we came around 8am there were still firemen here.'
Remarkably the fire left little damage to her home although the unused loft has been blackened by smoke damage and the water has leaked through her son's bedroom. The son said he had heard an alarm going off between 8pm and midnight, just hours before the fire broke out.
He added: 'I went out and there was no one there, it went on and off.'
The family said they did not know the neighbours very well as they regularly changed every two to three months.
On hearing the news about a body being discovered, the mother said: 'It feels a little bit strange.
'We don't know who lives there, we see people come and go.'
Norfolk police have said the death is currently being treated as unexplained and the cause of the fire is unknown.
Police remain on the scene and a seal has been put in place whilst Crime Scene Investigators (CSI) and fire investigators carry out enquiries to establish the cause of the fire.
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