Firefighters have returned to Harcourt St in Grey Lynn after a home caught fire for the second time in less than 24 hours.
Video / NZME / Hayden Woodward
A neighbour has described the terrifying moment a fire broke out at a Grey Lynn villa before she rushed towards the burning property to save an elderly woman who was locked inside amid a “wall of flame”.
A resident across the road from where the blaze broke out said she was helping pack up her daughter-in-law’s car on Thursday morning about 7.40am when they spotted a fire on the porch of the villa.
The neighbour, who only wanted to be identified as Monique, said she rushed up to her own house to grab a fire extinguisher then ran back towards the fire.
“The lady was throwing items of clothing that were on fire out the front door onto the porch... I can’t believe she didn’t catch on fire,” Monique told the Herald.
“She was standing there with more [clothes]. She was trying to move the fire, I think, in her own mind, but what she was actually doing was spreading it to the front of the house.”
Monique said in the moment she forgot the woman’s name and started calling her “Mum”.
“I was screaming, ‘Mum come out, it’s safe. Put that stuff down’.
“The sound was just insane, all the crackling.”
Monique said in a matter of seconds, the woman, who was only a couple of metres away, turned into a shadow and a whoosh of oxygen slammed the door shut.
“That’s when I heard the first windows go,” she said.
“I thought she’d slammed the door on me.”
Fire crews battled the second blaze for three hours before it was extinguished, leaving extensive damage. Photo / Hayden Woodward
Monique wasn’t able to get the door open because it was locked from the inside and thought about throwing her fire extinguisher through a window but feared it would hit the elderly woman.
“You just have all these thoughts in about half a billi-second.”
Next, she unsuccessfully bashed the door before rushing down the side of the home and screaming at the woman to make her way out.
The woman attempted to exit through the front door, but couldn’t get out put so turned around and exited from the back of the home.
“It was like the bloody resurrection when she came around the corner and then I was yelling at her because sometimes her daughter, who has triplets and another kid, come and stay so I was making sure they weren’t inside,” Monique said.
The woman was escorted to a neighbour’s house before fire crews arrived to extinguish the blaze.
“If we had waited 10 minutes, it would have been a different story,” Monique said.
“I thought she was going to die when the door slammed shut.”
It is unknown what caused the second blaze, which was sparked in the early hours of Friday morning. Photo / Hayden Woodward
The owner of the home told the Herald a faulty oil heater started the first fire, causing “extensive damage”.
