Wellington hostel fire: History of New Zealand’s largest and deadliest building fires

It is still unclear yet how the Loafers Lodge fire in Wellington will compare to some of the most deadliest and destructive fires in New Zealand’s history as authorities continue to work out how many people have lost their lives.

A raging blaze ripped through the Newtown hostel building this morning in what fire chief Nick Pyatt described as a “worst nightmare”.

The fire at Loafers Lodge in Wellington in which several people are unaccounted for. Photo / Angelia Zhang

Pyatt said 52 people have been accounted for from the building, with a number of people still missing and multiple people will be dead.

The hostel has capacity for 92 people, but it’s not clear how many people were inside at the time.

1947 Ballantynes shop fire

The 1947 Ballantynes shop fire in Christchurch is remembered as one of the nation’s worst tragedies after it claimed the lives of 41 people.

The fire occurred on a Tuesday afternoon in 1947 after smoke was discovered in the basement of a furniture department store.

The sprawling store had seven linked buildings, where up to 300 people were shopping and more than 450 people worked, at the time of the fire.

While most employees got out of the store, there was a delay before a number of office workers, dressmakers and hat makers were told to leave the upper floors of the building.

Ballantynes Fire Tuesday, November 18, 1947. Photo / Christchurch Star Archive

With no evacuation plan and no fire drills historically run, all but a few people were trapped in the blaze.

Some of the women in the store were ordered by supervisors to stay put.

It was a while before the fire brigade was called, so the fire was well-involved by the time fire units arrived, and the officer in charge was inexperienced. All firefighters were able to do was stop the flames from spreading.

Thirty-nine staff and two auditors who had been working in the building were killed in the blaze, making it, until the 2011 earthquake, Christchurch’s biggest disaster.

A Commission of Inquiry found that while the fire was an accident.

1942 Seacliff Mental Hospital fire

A fire at Seacliff Mental Hospital, north of Dunedin claimed the lives of 37 women in 1942.

The women were locked in Ward five at the hospital - a ward designated to “difficult” women patients.

Only two women made it out of the ward.

1969 Sprott House fire

In 1969 seven elderly lost their lives after a fire ripped through Wellington’s Sprott House rest home.

Fire investigators were unable to determine the cause of the blaze, so it was deemed an accident.

The incident led to the legalisation of fire drills, alarms and sprinklers in a need to strengthen fire regulations for rest home and boarding houses across the country.

The ruins of Sprott House after a deadly fire ripped through the rest home in 1969. Photo / Te Ara / Gavin Mclean

Author Lyn McConchie was working as a cook at Sprott House at the time of the fire.

“It caught fire in the early hours of the morning. At the height of the fire, I went in. It never occurred to me not to,” she told Hawke’s Bay Today in an earlier report.

She managed to get at least two people out, but seven died and it led to law changes. McConchie co-authored a book about the fire and some others in Wellington, called Where There’s Smoke, published in 2012.

Octagon building fire, Dunedin

On September 12 1879 a fire swept through Dunedin’s Octagon building and claimed 12 lives.

The fire is said to have originated in the Cafe Chantant.

1995 New Empire Hotel fire in Hamilton

Six people were killed on February 4, 1995, after Alan Wayne Lory set a fire inside the New Empire Hotel in Hamilton.

Five people died from the blaze and the sixth person died by jumping from the burning building.

Lory was convicted of manslaughter and arson in 1996.

Lory set fire to a hotel couch after holding a grudge towards staff who asked him to move out of the hotel.

He received a life sentence for manslaughter and a concurrent 12-year term for arson.

He was released from prison in 2009.

Terwindle Rest Home fire

In 1985 six people died on the scene of a fire at Terwindle Rest Home in Herne Bay, Auckland. Another person later died.

Flat Bush, Auckland house fire

A young girl was left an orphan after a fire spread through her family home in Flat Bush in 2016, claiming the lives of her mother, father, brother and grandmother.

Bhamini Theiventhiran, 39, her 5-year-old son Bareth Kailesh and 66-year-old mother Umadhevi Theiventhiran all died in the tragic blaze.

Theiventhiran’s 47-year-old husband Kaileshan Thanabalasingham was severely injured and died in hospital about one month later.

At the time, the blaze was New Zealand’s worst house fire since the 1970s.

Unattended cooking sparks deadly house fire

In 2009 a house fire, determined to be caused by unattended cooking, killed four children in Mangere.

South Auckland chief fire officer Larry Cocker says at the time that the blaze started when hot oil was left in a pan on the stovetop and ignited, setting the kitchen on fire.

Cocker said the flames then spread into the ceiling and rapidly through the house.

Two panic-stricken parents were beaten back by intense heat and flames as they fought desperately to save four children in their burning house, not knowing they were probably already dead.

Misi Sau and his wife Fetu Sau were both badly burned as they battled the intense heat in an attempt to save all their children.

They received critical injuries and were taken to Middlemore Hospital along with two children who survived the blaze.

Tamahere Icepak coolstore blaze

Firefighter Derek Lovell’s life was lost after a huge fire and explosion at Icepak’s coolstore in Tamahere, Waikato in 2008.

The incident also injured seven of his colleagues.

Ten years after the incident, firefighter Merv Neil recalled responding to the blaze.

The fire at Icepak's coolstore in the Hamilton suburb of Tamahere in 2008. Photo / James Madelin

He was driving one of two trucks called out to the coolstore fire about 4pm on April 5, 2008. Alongside him were Lovell, Alvan Walker and Brian Halford. Cameron Grylls, David Beanland, Adrian Brown and Dennis Wells were in the second truck.

Thirty minutes later the buildings exploded. Some reported seeing the roof fly 30m into the air before crashing on to a truck.

The ruins of the Tamahere coolstore. Photo / Herald on Sunday

Walker and Halford were trapped under the rubble. Grylls began giving Lovell first aid. Neil looked down to see the skin from his hands melting before urging everyone to get away.

Inquiries would later find that Icepak had been using the highly flammable refrigerant Hychill in its coolstores since 2002. There were no warning signs on its buildings.