A tabby cat named Sully has been praised by fire crews after she woke up a man and saved him from a fire that destroyed his home.

Craig Geeves, the owner of the property on Clegg Road in the Melbourne suburb of Wandin North, was fast asleep when the blaze broke out around 1:00am.

He said he was woken up by his cat sitting on his chest meowing in his face.

"[She was] screaming at me saying get up, wake up the house is on fire," he said.

"She was standing on my head screaming, the loudest scream I've ever heard from a cat screaming at me and then I smelt the smoke and jumped out of bed.

"She saved my life."

Mr Geeves said he got out of bed, grabbed Sully and ran outside.

"I just just held her, she was scared as, she was hunkering down into me and I took her up to the neighbours and they took care of her for the night," he said.

Yellingbo Fire Brigade Captain Paul Spinks said Chris was very lucky that Sully was awake.

"He was alerted by the cat and then removed himself from the house," he said.

"It wasn't until a later stage when crews found [him]. Once they were on scene he came out of a bush."

Captain Spinks said crews were not able to save the house but they prevented it from spreading to other properties.

"The first crews, they had to do forced entry to get into the property, and then proceeded to put as much water as they could to protect all exposures and adjacent properties, and obviously the bushland around the area," he said.