Sister pleads for rescue of burning brother

Two-year-old Cayden Beatty had a "beautiful cheeky smile, really quite like his grandfather".

His brother Kahvan, 4, "was a little more robust. He was a bit more boisterous".

But the "great little fellas" may have fallen victim to their own playfulness. A fire in their Tauranga home claimed their lives yesterday morning. Their mother, Natasha, and sister, Shaydine, survived the blaze.

Mrs Beatty was apparently inside when the fire began around 7.30am. Her husband, Grant, was not at home.

A neighbour, who did not want to be named, found the distraught mother on the street crying for help.

"She said she heard the kids yelling to her but she couldn't get to them."

The 37-year-old builder ran inside and got halfway into a bedroom at the back of the house but the fire prevented him reaching the front rooms.

"The heat and the smoke shoved us back out," he said.

He saw windows exploding as he ran up the driveway.

Matthew Churchward, 18, also tried to get inside.

The Hell's Pizza worker jumped three fences to get to the burning house, on a street parallel to his own, dressed only in his boxers.

He found 6-year-old Shaydine by the side of the house.

"She said, 'Help me, my brother's burning'."

Mr Churchward looked around for something to smash a window, but others warned him not to try to go inside. "The house was too engulfed," he said.

He said he deserved no praise for being brave. "Anyone else would've done it if they could. I just couldn't get in there."

Mr Beatty arrived at the white wooden bungalow around the time firefighters extinguished the flames about 7.50am.

Tauranga fire chief Ron Devlin said 12 firefighters battled fierce flames and temperatures of up to 1100C to try to save the boys.

"They got in but it was too late," he said. "It was incredibly fierce."

Detective Sergeant Todd Pearce said the cause of the fire was not yet known.

"It appears that possibly the children have been playing with matches, a lighter or the fireplace."

He said there was nothing to indicate the fire was suspicious.

Institute of Environmental Science and Research forensics experts, fire safety officers and police are to carry out a full examination of the site today.

"There are two young boys who have lost their lives so we need to establish the exact cause," Mr Pearce said.

Autopsies were carried out yesterday afternoon.

The boys' grandfather, Earl Beatty, said their deaths were tragic and spoke of Cayden's "beautiful cheeky smile" and Kahvan's boisterousness.

His wife, Ngaire, said the boys were "great little fellas".

At its peak the fire spewed out black smoke visible even at the fire station on Cameron Rd, about 6km away, where Mr Devlin saw it.

He said the first of three attack crews arrived six minutes after the call at 7.30am to find the fire "very, very heavily involved".

He said extreme temperatures were increasingly common in house fires because of polyurethane foam used in modern furniture.

"That's the type of energy force you're dealing with.

"People just don't stand a chance."

The foam also omitted poisonous gases that made fires more dangerous for both victims and firefighters.