KEY POINTS:
The mother of the teenage "hero" who died after helping his friends escape a fire yesterday says he was still her "baby boy".
Lachlan McLean (18) died yesterday in an early-morning blaze that gutted a flat in Oamaru.
He and another youth, who were sleeping in the lounge, heard the smoke alarms first, witnesses said. Together, they woke the four flatmates and helped them from the burning house. But McLean, an apprentice joiner, succumbed to the smoke.
It is understood that the five youths who escaped the fire tried desperately to reach McLean as the house burned, even breaking a window when it was not possible to get through the doors.
Sue McLean, Lachlan's mother, was too upset last night to speak about her son's actions. "I don't think I can say anything, apart from he was a wonderful kid and he was my baby boy... He was my baby boy."
Ashley Fagan, a friend of McLean's, told the Herald on Sunday she had been drinking at the flat on Friday night but went home before the party ended.
"I got a text from one of them [the flatmates] about 3am. I rolled over and went back to sleep... and found out later that the fire started at 5am."
She called McLean a "hero", and said he had been a hilarious prankster who often stayed at the flat over weekends.
He and his friends had been a tight group since leaving Waitaki Boys High School and often went out drinking in fancy dress just for a laugh, Fagan said.
"Last weekend it was a Mexican theme... He was hilarious. He's just a crack-up. I always thought he was an amazing guy."
On a social networking website McLean wrote about his love of cars and the Red Hot Chili Peppers and that he was scared of "the day they stop making waterbombs". There are dozens of pictures of him laughing with friends - at parties, leaping into a swimming pool, dressed up for a ball, and covered in white paint attempting a birdman flight.
A 2005 school newsletter shows him in costume for his role as courtier Greville in The Madness of King George.
Senior Sergeant Kevin Hooper of Oamaru said the fire started at 5.20am.
"Smoke detectors were fitted and alerted the occupants to the danger. Five of the six occupants managed to escape, however a sixth person died in the fire."
3 News said last night that it was believed the fire started in the kitchen, where food had been left cooking on the stove.
