‘I want to cook this town a feed’
A Taranaki man whose house caught fire on Wednesday and forced his takeaway shop to close says he feels lucky.
Lucky his family was uninjured, lucky the flames were extinguished before they spread through the house and adjoining takeaway shop, and lucky their community has rallied around.
‘‘I got to watch people come around me, firefighters put their arses on the line to save mine. I watched as the engineer next door and his wife came over, got on my roof with my garden hose and tried to put it out.
‘‘I suspect the little bit of water he put down there helped save my house from worse damage,’’ Peter Chandler, owner of Pete’s Takeaways in Kaponga, said.
Chandler discovered his lounge on fire about 3.30pm on Wednesday when he and his wife, Tina, were getting ready to reopen their takeaway shop, after being closed since the power went out during Tuesday’s storm.
They’d spent the day watching TV in front of the fire, thanks to the loan of a neighbours’ generator.
‘‘Because we had no power, we’d been lazing around, enjoying some time off. Luckily it started just after the power came back on, or I could have been asleep right there,’’ he said.
The fire started in the ceiling near the chimney flue in the house, which is behind the shop.
‘‘I came back up here to get my phone. I walked in and saw flames, saw smoke, and I just screamed, and ran. I think my screams are what alerted the neighbours.’’
The couple were touched by the kindness they were receiving from neighbours and others in the small town.
‘‘We’re lucky enough to have adult children living close by that have offered us a place to live. We’ve been offered houses, accommodation, food, clothing. Two people offered me their jackets when I was standing outside in the rain during the fire,’’ he said. Although the takeaway shop was closed because of the fire, he was keen to reopen as soon as possible.
‘‘I want to open up and cook this town a feed to say thank you.’’
Firefighters from the Kaponga, Okaiawa, Manaia and Eltham brigades attended the fire.
‘‘It was a good save. When we arrived it was pretty dense smoke and a lot of flames,’’ Kaponga chief fire officer Jason Hurley said
The colour of the smoke indicated the fire would soon have spread to the rest of the house.
‘‘Two crews in breathing apparatus went in and did a good job in containing it. We are happy for him, we had a house fire up the road recently that was totally destroyed, so it was nice to get one with minimal damage.’’
Although the Kaponga fire had a different cause, fire safety officer Matt Crabtree from Fire and Emergency New Zealand said the sudden onset of cold weather was a good time to remind people to ensure there were no flammable objects closer than a metre away to any heater, including log fires, gas heaters, heatpumps and electric heaters.
Wood fires and chimneys should be swept and inspected annually by a chimney sweep, and it was also a good time to check smoke alarm batteries and have electric blankets inspected by an electrician before putting them on beds, he said.