Man’s desperate effort to save his pets
A man punched out the windows of his own home in an effort to save his pets from a blaze that gutted his house.
Two fires in 12 hours in Levin left dozens without power and a pair without a home.
The first blaze saw emergency services called to a single-storey Morgan Cres house just before 8.35pm on Tuesday.
Police are investigating the blaze to see if it’s suspicious, a spokeswoman confirmed.
A woman and her son, who live across the road from the house and asked not to be named, said they saw what had happened. The woman said there were four explosions and her son ran into the house saying a house was on fire.
‘‘It started at the back of the house. The fire department were quick to get here and were really good.’’
The fire was put out quickly, but reignited a few times, she said.
Many people in the neighbourhood were curious about what had happened.
‘‘So many people have been coming and asking about what went on.’’
People had offered accommodation to the pair – a man and a woman – who lived in the house, she said.
‘‘I said, ‘you will be amazed how people come to your aid in these situations’.’’
The man was now living away from the house, but the woman was staying nearby.
No-one was home when the Manawatu Standard visited where the woman was staying, but a bag of clothing and a note for her had been left on the front porch.
The man who lived in the house appeared to have encountered the flames at some point.
‘‘He has got a haircut now,’’ the woman who lives across the road said. The woman’s son said the man was also missing his eyebrows and was covered in soot on the night.
The man was being screamed at by a woman he lived with, and could be seen punching out windows in an effort to get pets out, the son said. ‘‘He had cuts to his hand.’’ Kaylan Murphy said he rescued a German Shepherd dog from the back yard of the property and stopped a woman going back in to save more pets.
Murphy said he had been visiting his grandmother up the road at the time of the fire. It was ‘‘blazing above the house, about two storeys.
She [the dog] was trying to jump the fence and as soon as I got to her I just gave her a boost and she got over.’’
There were suggestions another dog, a cat and a bird perished in the blaze, but someone who lived a house over from the fire said the missing dog – a poodle that would play with his dog – often wandered up and down the street.
A fire investigator told him no bodies of any kind were found inside the house, he said.
Levin volunteer fire brigade chief fire officer Lindsay Walker said the fire started in the kitchen area and the roof had collapsed.
When fire crews arrived, they were unable to enter the building, such was the ferocity of the blaze, he said.
‘‘It’s 90 to 95 per cent gutted. Everything is pretty much burnt out.’’
A scene guard was at the house on Wednesday morning while fire investigators examined the aftermath, but they were gone by the afternoon.
The second fire took place at a power pole in Oxford St just after 6.25am on Wednesday.
Fire spokesman Scott Osmond said the blaze had brought down a power line.
A recording on power company Electra’s helpline said power had been lost to Levin south after the power pole caught fire and the company had repair crews working on the fault.
Power was restored Wednesday afternoon. by