FIVE months after a fire tore through a Chepstow house, the occupants of its surrounding properties have finally been allowed to move back in after £160,000 of repairs were completed.

Number 17 Caird Street, a terraced house, was almost gutted during the incident in March.

Five households were found alternative accomodation by Charter Housing, but the couple who saw their property ablaze have decided not to return and it has been re-let.

A spokesman for Charter said the house was practically rebuilt, including a replacement of the roof which burned down.

Occupants of numbers 11, 13, 15 and 19 had their properties declared habitable on August 12 and they were allowed to move back in.

"There were some tears of happiness," added the spokesman.

Fire reports, which tried to determine how the blaze started, proved inconclusive.

The couple who lived in the house were named locally as Mavis and Joseph Sullivan.

Their former next door neighbours Victoria Summers, 37 and daughter Meg, 16 told at the time how they alerted the fire brigade and helped the couple out of the house in the early hours of March 24.

Their house was badly damaged by smoke and water.

"If we hadn't been up we could have died. The whole building was shaking," she said.

In the aftermath, the wreckage of the house attracted attention from locals, who often stopped and stared.

Fire crews were called to the house twice as the blaze reignited around an hour and a half after they first left the scene at 9.15amon March 24.

People reported hearing explosions before crews from Caldicot, Chepstow and Lydney were called to the scene.