Photos of the huge blaze
Video: Coolstore fire burningKEY POINTS:
Firefighter Derek Lovell should have been at a reunion on the night he died, celebrating 25 years on the job.
As he was dying in Waikato Hospital, his colleagues, who did not know the extent of his injuries, were in Auckland celebrating the fact they had never lost one of their own.
The 49-year-old Hamilton senior station officer had been expected at Saturday night's dinner for firefighters recruited on April 5, 1983.
Instead, he and seven crew members were called to the Icepak coolstore in Tamahere, on the outskirts of Hamilton, where they were hit by a mammoth explosion.
Mr Lovell, a husband and father of a little girl, took the full brunt of the blast, suffering critical injuries.
He had multiple cardiac arrests as a result and died later that night, leaving behind his wife of eight years, Milli, and their 18-month-old daughter, Tiffany.
Colleagues and friends yesterday paid tribute to the veteran firefighter, remembering him as a great mate, keen hunter and family man.
Mr Lovell died as 13 others who joined the Fire Service on the same day as him met at the Auckland City fire station.
"It's a pretty stunning irony of timing," said one of the firefighters at the reunion, Doug Lyell.
"One of our guys, oddly enough, was looking at one of our recruit photos and made the comment, 'It's amazing we've all made it through 25 years without losing anyone', without knowing what had happened."
Mr Lyell said the group had been expecting Mr Lovell about 6pm but got word about the fire at Tamahere and hoped he might turn up later.
By the time they went for dinner about 9pm, they knew he had been injured but did not think it was that serious.
"[We thought] OK, maybe Derek's got a wee burn and we'll catch up with him later."
At midnight, they heard he had died. Mr Lyell said the group were in shock over Mr Lovell's death and stunned particularly by the timing.
"It's very sobering, very sad, to get this far and fall at that hurdle," Mr Lyell said. "You just tend to think that you're bulletproof [if] you got this far."
He said Mr Lovell was a very experienced and capable firefighter - "one you'd want on your side".
"He was leading from the front. He was doing what he loved and was doing a great job."
Mr Lovell's widow was too distraught to speak yesterday, but family friends Alan and Kim Timms said she adored her husband.
"To Milli, he was the perfect man," Mr Timms said.
Said Mrs Timms: "Milli just loved him to death. She was later [in life] getting married. He came along and her life was complete. She just can't believe that they've got the little baby and everything was so perfect and she's lost him now.
"She doesn't know where to go. She's in shock."
Mr Lovell's mother, Barbara, was also said to be distraught, having lost her other son in a motorcycle crash about 20 years ago. Her daughter is the only one of her children still alive.
Mr Lovell had been married before and had two stepchildren, but 18-month-old Tiffany was his firstborn. "I saw him with that baby," Mr Timms said. "He was just so lovely with her."
Mr Lovell was "a real family man" and he and his 39-year-old wife had worked hard to build their home, recently completing a duck pond and landscaped grounds for their lifestyle block in rural Cambridge.
The couple shared a love of the outdoors and Mr Lovell sometimes went horse-riding with his wife.
He was also an avid hunter and fisherman, flying into remote locations to pursue his hobby, and he possessed a great sense of humour.
Mr Timms did not believe Mr Lovell would know what to make of the attention focused on him since his death.
"Derek would probably feel real humbled for people to think he was a bit of a hero because he would just be saying, 'I'm doing my bloody job, same as all the firemen'."
Mr Lovell's colleagues struggled to hold back tears as they spoke of him at the Hamilton fire station, where bunches of flowers piled up during the day.
Tauranga's chief fire officer Ron Devlin was at the scene of the fire this morning and said the building was still burning.
"We've had two crews here overnight, one from Taupo and one from Auckland, with four tankers," Mr Devlin said.
He said aerial appliances had been used to get at the hot spots burning in the interior of the building's remains.
"It's very unstable," Mr Devlin said.
He said two fresh crews were due to come on this morning and while smoke was still drifting across the highway, it had been minimised.
A meeting is under way between fire fighters, the building's owners and Environment Waikato to discuss how rubble will be moved on the site and an ongoing strategy to fight the blaze.
Mr Devlin said an investigation into how the fire started had already begun.
He said some people in the area had been interviewed but fire fighters had not been able to enter the unstable structure to start the technical investigation.
National commander Mike Hall said yesterday that some kind of substance had been released but the type was unknown.
About six or seven Icepak staff are thought to work at the factory.
Meanwhile 36 year-old fire fighter David Beanland is in a critical condition and his colleague Adrian Brown has been described as serious at Waikato Hospital.
Merv Neil was last night listed as critical by the national burn unit at Middlemore in Otahuhu. The hospital this morning declined to comment on his condition.
Three other fire fighters were listed as being in a stable condition late last night.
