A fire that ripped through buildings at the Port of Tauranga today, sending up a dark plume of smoke that could be seen around the city, was caused by an electrical fault, the port's chief executive believes.
Fire and Emergency New Zealand were called to a building fire on Mirrielees Rd at Sulphur Point shortly after 11.30am and arrived to find a well-involved fire burning in a workshop and adjoining office building.
Port of Tauranga chief executive Mark Cairns told the Bay of Plenty Times that between 20 and 30 staff were in the immediate area of the fire but no one was injured.
"A lot of the staff are very emotional as you can expect," he said. "I am just relieved no one was injured. We only lost a couple of buildings."
Cairns said the fire started in a mechanical and electrical workshop and he believed the blaze was caused by an electrical fault.
The fire gutted the mechanical and electrical workshop and offices, and the C3 offices next door were also extensively damaged.
All staff working on the cranes and vessels were evacuated as a precaution and the truck entrance to the port was closed for several hours until firefighters gave the all clear about 3pm.
Cairns said the emergency crews and port staff involved did an "outstanding job" of containing the large fire.
St John Ambulance was called to the incident and were on standby for "a while" but were later stood down by the Port of Tauranga, a St John spokeswoman said.
Police were notified at 11.44am and were also at the scene.
Leighton Stronach was working inside the port when the fire started.
Stronach told the Bay of Plenty Times he saw the flames from the yard he was working in and initially thought a machine had just started up and was blowing out smoke.
"And then I saw that it was actually like raging fire.
"I was just mainly worried about if anyone was actually going to be inside," he said.
Another man who was also watching at the gate said he saw the smoke from his Ōhauiti home about 15km away.
Meanwhile, a man who would only be known as Mark, phoned the Bay of Plenty Times from his house on Minden hill to say he could see "an awful lot of black smoke rising up from Tauranga".
"It was very black but now it's turning grey. The smoke is going past the big container cranes so it's pretty big."
Fire and Emergency New Zealand said crews quickly contained the fire to two buildings and protected adjacent buildings and acetylene cylinders.
At one point, there were more than 10 fire trucks and 45 firefighters on site.
Fire and Emergency New Zealand said the cause of the fire at this stage was undetermined, "but investigations will commence as soon as the fire is extinguished".
The Tauranga Container Terminal was closed to traffic for a time but was expected to re-open by 4pm.
Meanwhile, as a precaution, the Bay of Plenty Regional Council placed booms in the water near the storm water outlet. This was to capture any material that may get accidentally flushed.
- Additional reporting: Kiri Gillespie and Sonya Bateson