Tenant loses everything in house fire
A fire in South Taranaki which destroyed a house is believed to have started from a meter box inside the timber frame building.
The man renting the house in Terou St, Manaia, lost most of his possessions, Manaia Volunteer Fire Brigade chief fire officer Shane Taylor said. ‘‘It has been totally destroyed. It’s devastating for the tenants, and the owners.’’
Volunteer fire service crews from Manaia, Hā wera and O¯ kaiawa were first called to the blaze at
8.40pm on Thursday.
‘‘When we got there it was totally involved and the whole house was smoke-logged,’’ Taylor said.
‘‘Luckily no one was at home at the time as the occupants had left.’’
Smoke alarms were sounding when the brigade arrived at the house.
Taylor said the fire could be pinpointed to an electrical fault at the meter box inside the house.
Fire crews were called back to the site at 2.30am yesterday when the fire reignited and again at
8.30am, he said.
A fire truck was called in from Hāwera the third time to assist because there were no drivers available for Manaia’s own appliance.
‘‘In the daytime we struggle with members working out of town, it’s happening around South Taranaki, more volunteers are needed pretty much all around the place.’’
Manaia resident and former Manaia brigade secretary Helen Bennett-Hintz said the man who lived in the house, a relative of her son’s friend, had been in Hāwera when the fire occurred.
‘‘I pulled the curtain back and the sky was orange. It was just horrendous.’’ Manaia resident Helen Bennett-Hintz
Her son had visited the house with the tenant after the fire had been extinguished.
‘‘There was quite a bit of stuff left in there after 10, including the fridge and other furniture, but it was all really burnt. He was hoping he was gong to be able to get his tools out from the back of it.’’
Just hours later, Bennett-Hintz was woken by the fire siren.
‘‘We heard the fire siren go off at 2. My husband Darryl used to be a senior firefighter, so he’s lying there listening to the appliances going out, then there’s this bang, so I pulled the curtain back and the sky was orange. It was just horrendous.’’
They could feel the heat of the fire from the street where they stood watching the blaze, which was about 100m from their own home.
Yesterday morning, they went back to have a look at the burnt-out house, and saw the fire had reignited.
‘‘We could see flames inside the window, and someone driving past put a call in to the station,’’ she said.
Across the road from the house fire, neighbour Peter said he awoke and saw the glow of the flames, and rushed out fearing the hedge in front of his own home was alight.
Instead, it was the house across the road.
‘‘I saw the fire engines earlier, about nine o’clock, but I didn’t see any flames then,’’ he said. ‘‘Later I woke and heard crackling and things going off, and I looked out, and the fire brigade had just arrived,’’ he said.