Suspicious fire destroys house

Fire investigator Craig Bain begins his inspection of the remains of the house at Takahue.

A suspicious blaze that destroyed a small house near Kaitaia was one of three fires that threatened homes in Northland in less than 12 hours.

Northland Fire investigator Craig Bain was still working yesterday to determine the cause of a fire that destroyed a small house at Takahue on Wednesday night, but had little doubt that it was suspicious.

"It wasn't connected to the power, so that takes out a lot of potential causes, and these things don't catch fire by themselves," he said.

The Cemetery Rd house, which was vacant when the Kaitaia Fire Brigade arrived, was gutted. The crews had no chance of saving anything of value.

"It was well away when we got there," Kaitaia station officer Ross Beddows said.

Three appliances had been dispatched; the brigade's water carrier was off the road, acquiring a certificate of fitness, but sufficient water was found in a nearby dam to extinguish the blaze.

"It didn't smell too good - it really stank when we got back to the station and cleaned the tanks out - but it did the job," he added.

The crews had been at the scene for about an hour-and-a- half, while police left a scene guard there overnight. Two members of the Kaitaia CIB were there yesterday to examine the remains of the house and its surrounds.

The brigade was called out again at 2.45am yesterday, to an address in Parkdale Crescent, Kaitaia.

A shed at the rear of the property was beyond saving by the time the first appliance arrived, within minutes of the alarm being raised. The initial fear was that the flames would spread to the house.

"Spouting had melted and the steps up to a deck had burned," Mr Beddows said.

"Another minute I'd say, two at the most, and flames would have got into the ceiling, so we concentrated on preventing that before we dealt with the shed."

The building was totally destroyed, along with its contents. The intense heat scorched the front of a car parked nearby, and partially melted the rear guards of a quad bike on a trailer in the driveway.

Fire risk management officer Michael Champtaloup said the likely cause of the fire was a 44-gallon drum incinerator that was hard up against one wall.

Meanwhile, a family lost their entire possessions when a small controlled rubbish burn caught long grass on fire and ignited their Whakapara home on Wednesday. Mr Bain said fire services were notified of the blaze on Puhipuhi Rd at about 4.30pm.

There was nobody in the house at the time.

"The house was on the ground when the brigade got there," he said.

Half-tanked is helpful
Rural Far North people could greatly reduce the potential for a calamitous fire by ensuring their water tanks are always at least half full.

So says fire investigator Craig Bain, who has begun investigating a blaze that gutted a small house at Takahue on Wednesday night.

"Lack of water, and empty water tanks, are a big problem in rural areas," he said.

"Ideally households should have at least 10,000 litres, about half a tank, available at all times. It would also be useful if Fire Service couplings were attached to residential water tanks, which, especially plastic ones, should be at least six metres from the house.

Water in dams should be at least one metre deep within two metres of the edge, all year round. Ten thousand litres wouldn't necessarily last long when it came to fighting a significant fire, but it would be enough to give firefighters time to find and begin pumping from another source.