Cause of marae blaze 'may never be known'

Pikowai Ohia examines a digging tool found in the ruins of the whare. Picture / Alan Gibson

Fire safety officers say the cause of a blaze that extensively damaged a Bay of Plenty marae may never be known.

Firefighters spent hours putting out the inferno at Ngati Pukenga iwi's Whetu O Terangi Marae at Welcome Bay after the alarm was raised about 2.45am on Sunday.

Tauranga Fire Station senior station officer Jeff Maunder said yesterday that there was no danger of reignition and all fire crews had left the scene.

The cause of the fire was not known and arson had not been ruled out, Mr Maunder said. A fire safety officer was continuing the investigation at the scene.

"The damage is quite extensive, which is making the investigation difficult. We might not ever know," Mr Maunder said.

There was no water at the site and firefighters had to run a shuttle service from a river, where a portable pump was set up to fill fire tankers.

The blaze damaged about 80 per cent of the building but carvings from the front of the meeting house were saved.

Ngati Pukenga elder Monty Ohia said the loss caused by the fire was horrifying. The only consolation was that the carvings were saved.

"Originally this building didn't have any carvings," Mr Ohia said.

"About 1990 it was decided it should have some carvings and one of our own boys did them. There's no carving anywhere else like it. It was sort of a whole body thing."

Mr Ohia said the meeting house was originally situated a mile upstream.

"The only access in those days was by barge and the barge could only go so far.

"In the 1880s it was moved up from where it originally was, up the Waitao [River] to where it is now."

- NZPA