'I knew the fire was my fault', says teacher

A guilt-ridden teacher has described the double agony of seeing his own school engulfed in flames - then realising he had caused the blaze.

Visibly upset and close to tears, Auckland teacher Carl Robson spoke of how he was wracked with guilt one week after setting fire to his school with a carelessly discarded ember, leaving his pupils facing a new term being taught at home.

Last week, a blaze nearly razed Drury Christian School, after Mr Robson mistakenly put a burning log back in a woodpile behind the school's only classroom. After slowly smouldering all day, the log burst into flames and set the outside cladding alight, before flames spread through the ceiling.

The fire gutted most of the school, and thick heavy smoke damaged everything else.

Seated in the charred skeleton of the building, Mr Robson said a stressful week at work and a newborn daughter had distracted him on the day of the fire - but that was no excuse for what had happened.

"As soon as they said 'fire', I knew it was my fault," he said. "It was a stupid mistake. I thought it was out, and I was going to check it but..."

After classes had finished for the second term, he lit the fireplace on a chilly Saturday morning to warm the classroom for parents visiting later that day. One log stubbornly refused to fit in the wood burner, so he pulled it out of the fire and picked off the pieces which were smoking, before putting it back in the woodpile at 9.30am.

Slowly smouldering for eight hours, the log caused the stack of wood to burst into flames shortly before 5.30pm, when school trustee Steve Atkinson first raised the alarm.

Mr Atkinson saw flames venting through the roof and closed the front doors in a vain attempt to suffocate the fire.

Mr Robson, who was at home with his newborn daughter, sprinted down the road to the school and joined several neighbours trying to douse the flames.

Four fire trucks arrived within seven minutes of Mr Atkinson's emergency call, but it was too late.

The sole teacher at the school for the past eight years, Mr Robson said it was "gut wrenching" to watch his classroom go up in smoke.

To make matters worse, Mr Robson spent most his 32nd birthday sifting through the charred wreckage of his destroyed classroom the next morning.

"It wasn't much of a birthday present. It's hard not to blame myself, I do blame myself, but I can't turn back the clock," Mr Robson said.

Although the damage to the one-classroom school is less than initially feared, nearly 40 pupils face a late start to the third school term.

Grateful that no one was hurt or killed, Mr Robson said the fire could have been far worse.

If the wind had been blowing in the other direction, neighbours' houses only metres away from the school would have gone up in flames.

The school building is uninsured, but Mr Robson is heartened by the support of the community and other Christian schools, which have offered to replace resources destroyed in the blaze.

"I'm absolutely gutted, but it's been character building. I can't get down, I've got to get up."

Malcolm Brown, the Papakura fire station officer, said these types of fires were common during the winter months.

"But wood can be burning, even when it looks like it's not. It's a big loss for these people."