It took firefighters six hours to put out a blaze at a tyre shop near Kerikeri on State Highway 10. Video / Supplied
With the building on fire above them, tyre shop owner Rob Edge and worker Kaleb Andrew went like the clappers to get the wheels back on customers’ cars.
They raced like a Formula 1 pit stop crew, to get the wheels on, cars off jacks and then out of the Far North business before the ceiling collapsed and it burned to the ground.
And even then, with thick black smoke swirling, the pair raced back inside to get the ute Edge’s dad had left him when he died.
“The old man had passed away so I didn’t want to lose that too,” said Edge, who - a few hours later - was still questioning the wisdom of running back into the burning building.
Even getting the ute out was remarkable - it’s a classic Holden HQ ute that’s a work-in-progress with no engine or steering.
Rob Edge with his dad's classic ute, saved from the blaze. Photo / David Fisher
“We had to literally drag it out,” said Andrew. It needed lifting on a few occasions with a surge of adrenaline the only explanation he has for how the two men managed to swing the body of the ute around.
The Kerikeri fire siren sounded just before 11am in a call that needed more than 30 volunteer firefighters from five brigades and another two paid crews from Whangarei.
It took hours to bring the fire at the State Highway 10 business under control and it was expected they wouldn’t be finished until about 5pm - a solid and sweaty six hours under the Far North’s hot sun.
Rob Edge said he was told of the fire by a worker at the nearby gelato ice-cream stand. The popular local business faces the tyre shop across a gravel parking lot and it was from there she spotted smoke coming out of the roof.
He said she ran into the tyre shop - Tyre Save Direct - to alert those inside to the smoke. He raced across the lot for a look, realised instantly there was a serious problem and the roof was “well involved” in flame by the time he got back.
“We had three cars without tyres so had to quickly fit those to get them out,” said Andrew. The business was typically busy with cars on jacks and customers waiting.
A towering pillar of smoke rose from the burning tyre shop near Kerikeri.
Having got the customers’ cars out, and the ute, Andrew realised his phone and all his bank and identity cards had been left inside. He was hoping his name in this news story might help convince the bank he was who he said he was when he went looking for a new Eftpos card.
Tracy Edge, Rob’s wife, was wondering if she was in shock, sitting at a table next to the ice-cream stand and watching a digger pulling apart the smoking remains of the business.
“I’m just grateful everyone is alright and no one was hurt – that they got all the people out. And I’m grateful to the fire crews. And that they stopped the fire spreading next door.”
The business had been going for about nine years on that spot and it, along with most of its stock and equipment, was completely destroyed.
It was also insured, she said, which brought the prospect of rebuilding.
Tracy Edge, who owned the tyre shop with her husband Rob, from where she was watching the smoking remains get pulled apart. Photo / David Fisher
Deputy chief fire officer Andy Hamberger said those fighting the fire found they were particularly stretched when an early afternoon car accident needed some to divert to the crash.
“Our main objective was to save the neighbouring fruit and vegetable shop,” he said. With plumes of smoke hundreds of metres high, the neighbouring building appeared to have escaped with minimal damage.
“It was hard work - hard manual work. The biggest problem is the fumes.” It was also challenging putting out a fire that involved stacks of tyres, he said.
Thick black smoke billowed into the air for hours before the fire crews managed to douse the blaze. The battle was compounded by the nearest hydrant being about two kilometres distant at The Old Packhouse market.
The lack of water meant that tankers from the Cavalli Fire Brigade and Hikurangi Volunteer Fire Brigade, and fire trucks, shuttled back and forth about 30 times during the course of the blaze.
A firefighter going through a decontamination shower and scrub down with the remains of the tyre shop in the background. Photo / David Fisher
Those brigades joined the Kerikeri volunteers and brigades from Ōkaihau and Kaikohe. Whangārei’s two fire engines brought the decontamination equipment needed for firefighters who had grappled with the toxic fire.
Hamberger said it reinforced the need to recruit additional members and urged those interested to contact their local volunteer brigades. “We’re always looking for new members to increase our brigade.”
David Fisher is based in Northland and has worked as a journalist for more than 30 years, winning multiple journalism awards including being twice named Reporter of the Year and being selected as one of a small number of Wolfson Press Fellows to Wolfson College, Cambridge. He first joined the Herald in 2004.
