A dairy and adjacent house have burned down north of Auckland after catching fire overnight.
Stanmore Bay resident Sam Teh lives close to the Bayview Dairy and said he saw the store catch ablaze before the firefighters arrived.
“There were a lot of small pops which must’ve been all the cans inside exploding.
“The fire also melted one of the power lines, and the lights in our house were flickering before we noticed it.
“It was pretty scary, we were lucky it had been raining all day.”
Teh said the building began to disintegrate around 11.20, and the fire crew arrived around 11.20 to 11.30pm. It was mostly put out by midnight.
“The fire could be felt from across the road and was really blazing with the strong wind.
“I don’t know when it properly started or when it got big, but I noticed the popping and flickering lights from around 10:45pm.”
A neighbour has described the smell of burning smoke continuing to come out of the property when she went for her morning walk.
Nenita Wilson lives five minutes away from the dairy on Vipond Rd.
Wilson said it was sad and she could not believe the shop was gone this morning.
“Me and my husband went for a walk this morning just around 9am and we saw the dairy shop on the corner was all burned. I thought ‘oh my God it’s our dairy’. I can still smell the burning smoke. Police and firefighters are still there investigating.”
Wilson said the owners of the shop“are a good couple”.
“It’s really, really sad. It’s all gone.
“The owners live in a house adjacent to the shop which has also been affected. The front and kitchen door of their place is also damaged. The garage is completely gone.”
A Fire and Emergency spokesperson said they got multiple calls to the fire about 11.15pm.
“Five fire appliances responded and a few support vehicles as well. All persons were accounted for.”
The fire service had no information yet on what caused the fire, the spokesperson said.
A police spokesperson said officers also attended the fire but “inquiries to date suggest [it] is not suspicious”.
Three fire trucks have been dispatched to the scene.