A sharp response from the first fire crews to the scene of a blaze in the roof area of Quality Bakers in Onekawa yesterday prevented it spreading and causing what could have been major damage.
"It's a very pleasing result for us," the fire service's officer-in-charge Mark Magill said at the scene as firefighters mopped up and used fans to extract smoke from the Niven St building. "It was good work."
While the full scale of the damage to the ceiling area, and to panelling around the area of the bakery's large single oven, would not be known until a full inspection was carried out, it was likely to affect production in the short term.
Apart from some structural damage there was a lot of water in the bakery area in the wake of its own sprinklers activating around 1pm and the water firefighters poured into the ceiling and roof areas.
Three appliances and an aerial firefighting unit raced to the scene, although Mr Magill said the aerial unit was not required as firefighters were shown an access area to the roof. "We had one fire crew inside and others on the roof stripped some iron off to get at it from there."