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A Dunedin man rushed to extinguish a fire in the aftermath of a crash that killed two people on Boxing Day.

Driving with his wife and children on the way to work in Nelson, oil company representative Andrew Hobbs was following a Holden Commodore travelling at what he believed was a high speed through Glenavy, in South Canterbury.

Seconds later, he was confronted with the burning wreckage of a high-impact collision.

Horton James Hill, 80, of Christchurch, and Matthew James Gilchrist, 31, of Oamaru, were killed when a northbound car crossed the centre line and ploughed into another on the Waimate Highway section of State Highway 1 on Tuesday morning.

‘‘The weather was a bit skodie in the fact that there was intermittent rain and bits and pieces . . . the roads were pretty wet,’’ Hobbs said.

‘‘As we came into Glenavy the police officer is on the other side of the road, and as she stopped she put the lights on.

‘‘Now at that point the guy in the Commodore puts the gun down and bolts . . . I said to police he would have been doing at least 140 to 150kmh through Glenavy on the way out of town.’’

Hobbs said he looked for more than 10 seconds into his rear view mirror, and saw the police officer hadn’t turned the car around to follow the speeding driver.

‘‘About 40 seconds later we came across the accident, so he has gone around the very first bend out of Glenavy, lost it and hit the poor guy [going south] absolutely square in the front.’’

Hobbs saw a figure lying on the ground close the crash site, so pulled over 50 to 60 metres short of the crash.

‘‘In our work vehicles we carry tools, water, first aid [equipment] fire extinguisher, and we have had training.

His first aid training and five months of experience working for the Volunteer Fire Brigade in Kaiapoi immediately kicked in.

‘‘I knew exactly what had happened, we have all seen it before . . . it comes down to instinct . . . you have just got to prioritise the situation and disassociate yourself.’’

Hobbs put his hazard lights on, and had a truck driver behind him do the same and block the road.

‘‘I have bolted out of the car, got as far up the road as I can, gone past the ding and stopped another guy on the other side [of the road] to give us a bit of security.

‘‘I have gone back to my ute, grabbed my high vis, grabbed my fire extinguisher, put the fire out and got the scene safe.

‘‘If I hadn’t put it [the fire] out at that point there was all sorts of bits and pieces, there’s fuel, there’s all sorts of stuff that could easily have got a lot more involved.’’

Hobbs said he then went and checked for vital signs on both victims but quickly realised that they were both dead.

His wife called the police and he used a blanket to cover the two crash victims.

‘‘I just had a bit of a tidy up, just try and get as much stuff out of the way make sure the fire didn’t reignite, 15 minutes later the emergency services arrived.’’

A police communications spokeswoman said as the investigation into the crash was still under way.

Police were unable to comment on whether the driver of the Holden Commodore had sped away from police in the lead-up to the crash.

Hobbs said he would be making a formal statement about the crash to police when he drove back through Waimate on his way home to Dunedin tomorrow.