High St building burns

A building on fire in Motueka’s main street had fire crews fighting the flames from the early hours on Thursday.

Firefighters were called to the blaze at the AgFirst building on High St just after 4am.

Nelson senior station officer Craig Davies said the alarm was raised about 4.20am, when a security guard noticed the fire. About 50 firefighters from both Nelson and Tasman were involved at the height of the blaze, which took about two hours to get under control.

Davies said the fire started in the top storey of the building and caused extensive damage to the top floor and roof. The ground floor suffered some water damage, but was not badly affected by the fire itself. None of the adjacent buildings were damaged.

Davies said there was no word on the cause of the fire yet, but fire investigators were at the scene. He said that while as many High St shops as possible had been allowed to open, the road was closed until about 3pm.

Fire and Emergency New Zealand spokeswoman Lyn Crosson said that at 8am, crews were still working on the second floor of the building and containing the fire. An ambulance was called, as one of the firefighters was suffering from heat exhaustion.

Early reports suggested the fire had caused significant damage, with part of the building’s roof collapsing shortly before 7am.

The building houses several businesses, including farm consultancy company AgFirst.

An NZ Transport Agency spokesman said State Highway 60 had been closed between the intersections with Greenwood St and Tudor St because of the fire.