Family flee electrical fire

When a Brightwater family smelled smoke on Sunday evening, they knew what to do. Fire and Emergency NZwas called to the Snowden Place house about 5.20pm. Crews from Brightwater, Richmond, Wakefield and Appleby responded, shift manager Lyn Crosson said. When firefighters arrived, the house was ‘‘smoke-logged’’, she said. A heat detector helped the firefighters locate a small electrical fire in the roof cavity, which was ‘‘just smouldering’’ and not yet started to spread. The house’s occupants did ‘‘exactly the right thing’’, Crosson said. ‘‘They turned the power off and evacuated and waited for us.’’