Rats spark blaze as rodent numbers boom
Fires that ravaged two Waikato homes in recent days were likely a result of rodents’ gnawing appetite for electrics.
The blazes come as experts warn of an explosion in the country’s rat population following a record-breaking long, dry summer.
Sizzling conditions meant an extended breeding season for the pests who have now come scurrying inside in search of food and warmth over the winter months.
Those pesky vermin may also be behind two fires that destroyed a farmhouse south of Te Awamutu, and another house near Morrinsville in the last three days.
It was just after midnight on Tuesday when a motorist on Te Kawa Rd, between Otorohanga and Kihikihi, spotted an orange hue amid the trees and called 111.
When crews from Te Awamutu arrived, they found the 150sqm house ablaze.
Flames leapt from the roof space and had engulfed the front half of the house, Te Awamutu Fire Brigade senior station officer Glenn Anderson said.
Firefighters used high pressure hoses to control the flames from the outside before breaking their way into the locked house.
It took three crews using two tankers three hours to put out the blaze. They were called again at 5am when a hotspot flared up.
After sifting through the remains on Tuesday, Waikato fire investigator Jess Kukutai said the fire ignited in the electrical wiring.
The house, owned by a farmer who livesnearby, was unoccupied and undergoing renovations.
New tenants were due to move in in about a month’s time.
The house had been rewired and was waterblasted a day before the blaze ignited.
It was likely rats or mice had chewed through the electrics, she said, and water from the blasting had seeped in.
‘‘Or there is a fault with the wiring and that will be up to the insurance engineers who will be going out there to look at it.’’
Corrosion from rodent activity, combined with a bolt of power moving through the remaining electrical lines, could spark a blaze, she said.
Kukutai said the owner had been frequenting the house once a week to set traps as the region experiences a boom in rat numbers.
‘‘The place has been vacant for about four weeks and there’s no sign of break-ins or anything like that.’’
She was also looking into whether rodents or an electrical plug was the cause of a fire at a home that went up in flames on Harbottle Rd, near Morrinsville, on Sunday morning.
The 200sqm house caught fire at 6.08am and was engulfed in flames.