Too many Turangi fires
Volunteer firefighters in Turangi have been attending more house fires than many professional brigades in much larger centres in recent times.
Over the last nine months the Turangi Volunteer Fire Brigade has attended seven structure fires.
The latest fire occurred on Tuesday evening when a Putaata Road house burned down leaving a mother and daughter with nothing.
The brigade’s Station Officer Jayel Ham said as luck would have it, it was a training night for the brigade and they were at the scene in minutes.
‘‘When we arrived the house was pretty much fully involved – basically half the house was fully engulfed in flames.’’
There were initial concerns someone may have been inside the home, Ham said.
‘‘That was the first priority to make sure they weren’t there – if they had been in the house it would have been a completely different picture.’’
‘‘There were several people there who were in contact via text with the occupant saying they weren’t home.’’
‘‘Normally we would have one call out to a house fire every one to two years,’’ Ham said.
‘‘At the moment we are getting close to one house fire every month. Seven in nine months is quite phenomenal.’’
Ham said determining a trend between each fire was impossible as each had different causes including: wood fires, chimneys, fish smokers, and multi plugs.
He said checking these problem areas in a house could prevent the brigade turning up at your address.
‘‘Burning wood in a fire place not designed for it can cause problems,’’ Ham said.
‘‘Native timbers burn at such a higher heat than most other woods and some fire places cannot handle it. It is a big difference from burning pine.
‘‘The heat can damage the flue and push heat in to the roof timbers causing a fire.’’
Electrical points should also not be overloaded with plugs, especially when there is a heating appliance plugged into it.
‘‘Anything that draws a lot of current should not be in a multi box running other equipment,’’ Ham said.