TOILET TRICK: Arrowtown's Kate Gatonyi with her hero, Maceo, whose wet paws saved his owners from a fierce fire.

A cat has saved a Central Otago couple who were within a whisker of being engulfed by a "raging inferno".

Maceo the cat woke his Arrowtown owners at 3am on Wednesday by wetting his paws in the toilet bowl and walking on their faces.

Kate Gatonyi and partner Bevan Garland awoke to find a fire just three metres from their bedroom window.

A neighbour's shed had caught fire and the flames were spreading to the couple's garage and gas bottles.

Gatonyi said Maceo often played with water but had never put his feet in the toilet bowl.

He usually just meowed if he wanted to get attention at night, she said.

"The cat was putting his paws in the toilet bowl and then walking over our faces. He did it about three times. I was thinking, `Why is he doing that?' That is what woke me up," she said.

"I looked out the side of my eye and thought, `What is all that colour out there?' I opened up my blinds and there was a raging inferno.

"It had nearly got to my fence. The neighbour next door was wetting our fence, but it would have gone to the garage, the car, the gas bottles and our bedroom. It was quite scary."

Gatonyi praised the cat's alarm-raising brilliance and said he would be rewarded.

"He's a hero in my world," she said. "I think he was fantastic.

"He is going to get a lot of biscuits."