‘Courageous’ actions in fire

Partygoers who saved friends from a fatal Hamilton house fire have been praised for their selfless actions.

Toni Maree Johnston, 23, Jake Lindsey Hayes, 19, and Connor James Swetman, 17, were killed in the blaze which swept through a Collingwood Street villa in November 2014.

However, more would have died if not for the actions of two men in the house, Coroner Gordon Matenga wrote.

Jesse Tudor and Joseph Soutar deserved recognition for their selfless and courageous actions in a situation of ‘‘enormity and peril’’, he wrote.

The last party guests left the villa not long before the fire, around 4.20am on Saturday, November 15.

Less than an hour later, those who slept over were desperately trying to save themselves and their friends from a fast-moving fire.

Smoke alarms at the property weren’t in use but Tudor woke in the spare bedroom to black smoke and glowing orange flames.

‘‘His first thought was for the safety of others in the house, so he ran upstairs to warn [them],’’ Matenga wrote.

His actions his own life, and those of five other people, he wrote. After realising the whole lounge was on fire, Tudor sped upstairs to Soutar’s room, he said in a police statement.

‘‘Get the f-ck up, bro, the house is on fire,’’ Tudor said, kicking Soutar.

By the time Soutar was roused, flames were coming up the stairs, Tudor told police.

‘‘I couldn’t see anything in the house and the heat was coming up from the floorboards.’’

Before leaving the house, Tudor kicked open Raine Tarawa’s door, but he fell back down the stairs when smoke billowed out.

Meanwhile, Soutar’s room had filled with smoke when Bianca Peautolu – also sleeping there – opened the door. Soutar kicked open a second door to the wraparound balcony outside his ranch slider.

‘‘[I] went to kick Jake’s door in, but the fire was all over that part of the balcony,’’ he told police.

He ran back to his burning room and carried a halffainting Peautolu to safety, then went for a second attempt at Hayes’s door. Before he could, the window smashed and smoke and fire poured out.

He ran around the outside of the house to Johnston’s room – not knowing if anyone was inside – and banged on the wall.

He was readying himself to rescue other friends when he saw them safely outside on the driveway.

When firefighters arrived at 5.07am, the fire was so fierce they could only just get in the back door.

The fire’s cause remains unknown, but Matenga said it ignited in a couch in the downstairs lounge.

‘‘While the circumstances are suspicious, the evidence is insufficient to reach the evidential standard required,’’ Matenga wrote.