Renters lucky to be alive after house fire in Nelson

Two tenants were watching TV upstairs when they smelt smoke coming from the downstairs room. File news

Two Nelson renters are lucky to be alive after a fire started in the lounge of their two story house last night.

Firefighters were alerted to the Hardy St East property by a 111 call at around 10.30 last night after the tenants, who were watching TV upstairs, smelled smoke coming from the downstairs room.

"All the clothes, and paper and kindling and firewood were all stacked around a freestanding fireplace and had caught on fire." Says senior station officer Craig Davies. "There was also a clothesline strung across the top of the fireplace which had failed and clothes had dropped onto the fireplace and caught on fire."

Mr Davies said the outcome could have been a lot worse if the occupants had not been awake as the property was not fitted with smoke alarms. The only exit from upstairs was a single staircase which would have been blocked if the fire spread further.

"If they hadn't smelled the smoke, if they had been asleep, then they would have quite probably died."

The tenants managed to extinguish the fire themselves using buckets of water and firefighters dampened down hotspots with hoses and the use of thermal imaging cameras.

The lower ceiling and a corner of the lounge has received significant damage.

"The key here is to keep all the combustables away from the fireplace and to have working smoke alarms. 80 per cent of the fires we go to don't have working smoke alarms," Mr Davies said. "We have a rule that any combustable material must be stacked at least a metre away from a fireplace."

- Nelson Weekly