KEY POINTS:
A Far North woman's asthma may have saved her and a man from dying as their home caught fire.
Firefighters were called to a blaze early yesterday which started in the bathroom.
There was no electricity at the property and no smoke alarms were installed in the old weatherboard house, where the woman and a man lived, on State Highway 1 in Te Ahuahu, about 13km northeast of Kaikohe.
Struggling to breathe after smoke from the flames reached her, the woman woke up at 12.30am and raised the alarm.
A candle in the bathroom had ignited the wall and carpet as the couple slept.
Kaikohe volunteer chief fire officer Bill Hutchinson said the fact the woman was an asthmatic probably saved the pair's lives.
"The smoke made it pretty difficult to breathe early on in the piece otherwise if they were there for much longer we could be looking at a double fatality," Mr Hutchinson said.
Local Maori, gathered for a tangi at the Parawhenua Marae, about 50m from the house, called the firefighters after seeing flames coming out of the building.
Mourner Francis Marino said no one in the marae knew that the old, rundown house with overgrown grass was occupied.
"We were sitting down and suddenly there was an explosion and we thought someone had broken into the house," he said.
"Then flames started coming out and someone ran to call the fire people. They were prompt. As soon as we hung up, they were here."
He said the couple was standing outside when he arrived after dousing off the flames ahead of the fire crews' arrival.
"It's a historical house ... very old and we didn't even know they were living there," Mr Marino said. "Only after the window shattered and flames started coming out did we called the fire people."
Mr Marino said he returned to the marae after the man and woman said they were fine.
- NORTHERN ADVOCATE
