Hundreds of Kāinga Ora homes damaged by fire every year
Cobi Mccallum was inside his Kainga Ora home in Spotswood, New Plymouth when a fire started in the kitchen. He had to run for his life.
He got through the corridor between the bedroom and the kitchen, just before the flames cut him off from the main door, he said.
Mccallum is just one of 192 Kāinga Ora tenants whose houses have been damaged by fire during the 2023-24 financial year ending June 30, as of January 17.
The cause of the fire in Mccallum’s home on December 9 was unknown, and there had been 51 other Kāinga Ora houses that had been damaged by fire so far this financial year.
An incident report released under the Official Information Act, showed the fastburning fire started in the kitchen of the three-bedroom house. The fire burned so quickly through the timber framing and the plasterboard on the walls that, by the time firefighters arrived, the roof in the kitchen had collapsed.
“A pot and a frying pan were found on the electric stove top,” the report said.
But firefighters found the failure of a lithium-ion battery on a charger could have caused the fire, as well as an electrical failure of a switch, socket or wiring.
Kāinga Ora general manager national services Nick Maling said unattended cooking was the most common cause of fires in state-owned homes, with 40% of fires this financial year due to it.
New data released under the OIA to Stuff showed 2781 Kāinga Ora houses have been damaged by fire since 2013. The 730 house fires in South Auckland made it the region with the most incidents.
Across New Zealand, 352 state-owned houses went up in flames in the year 2022-23. The previous year that number was 379. Since 2018, the national tally has always been north of 300.
In the past 10 years, the government agency had spent more than $56m on fire remediation works, which included testing for asbestos, clean up and fire debris removal, or rebuilding a home.
Mccallum said the day the house fire occurred was a normal day, until he heard suspicious popping noises coming from the kitchen. “It was hot as,” he said.
Originally from Mount Maunganui, Mccallum said he had been living in the Tumai St property for the past four years. Mccallum said the memories of the fire still haunted him, causing sleep deprivation. He used to live at the house with his three teenage kids, Mccallum said, but he was the only one inside the property at the time. Even though the flames burned furniture, electronics and smoke damaged all the clothes, he said the biggest loss was the sentimental items – family photos and taonga like his family carvings. A solo father on a $420-a-week benefit, he had no contents insurance, he said.
In the past 10 years, about 12% of fires in Kāinga Ora properties were either deemed suspicious or caused by arson.
Other causes were a lit cigarette or candle (7%), an electrical failure (7%), or kids playing with matches or lighters (5%). Maling said the majority of the fires in Kāinga Ora properties were minor, but sometimes the damage was extensive and the house would require a major rebuild.
Since 2018, 271 Kāinga Ora properties were demolished due to fire damage.
However, in the majority of the cases, maintenance and repair work could fix the damage, Maling said. “Kāinga Ora has over 70,000 properties, and those affected by fires represent just 0.5% of our homes per year,” Maling said.
Mccallum was now living in a smaller property in the same neighbourhood. But he would soon have to find another three-bedroom home to house his kids, he said.