Kitchen fires and potential arson

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

A pot of oil on a stove that overheated set fire to the kitchen and dining room of a house in Gladstone Road on Friday night.

Fire and Emergency NZ sent two appliances to the home near the Wellington Street corner at around 9pm that evening.

“The fire had spread from the kitchen and dining room into the roof space by the time we got there,” a senior firefighter said.

Fire crews were able to stop the fire spreading.

“We would call it a good save.”

The dining room and kitchen were extensively damaged and the rest of the dwelling was smoke-damaged.

“The adult and three children inside the house at the time all got out OK,” the senior firefighter said.

“They were alerted by working smoke alarms.”

The occupants were checked over by a St John ambulance crew for injuries and smoke inhalation.

“They were all OK.”

There was a second pot-of-food-on-the-stove incident just before 6pm last night at a house in Ropata Street in Kaiti.

Firefighters said neighbours heard smoke alarms in the house going off and raised the alarm.

“We forced entry and found food overheating on the stove and a smoke-filled house,” a senior officer said. “There was no actual fire damage but it was very close to being a house fire.”

The crew removed the food and ventilated the home.

Shortly after midnight they were called to a property in Clifford Street where a fire had been lit against the outside wall of a shed.

“A passerby spotted it and called 111,” the senior firefighter said.

“We got there in time to stop it getting into the shed and damage was confined to the outside.”

Police and a specialist fire investigator have an inquiry under way.

The cause has been treated as suspicious.