KEY POINTS:
Firefighters say an elderly, bedridden man would probably still be alive had there been a working smoke alarm in his south Auckland home.
The badly burnt body of the man, believed to be in his 90s, was found amid the ruins of his bed when firefighters arrived at the Dissmeyer Drive home in Clover Park, Papatoetoe about 10.30pm last night.
Senior Station Officer Terry Jenner said he would have been dead well before firefighters had even received the first of several 111 calls to the fire.
Another occupant of the house heard noises at one end of the house but when she went to investigate and opened the elderly man's door she was greeted by a fireball.
"It would appear the fire had been burning for some time in the bedroom prior to the rest of the family discovering it."
He said the man was not mobile but had a hospital frame over his bed so he could pull himself up. However, there was very little of the bed left.
"The bed was just basically springs sitting on the floor. The room was gutted.
"He could pull himself up to sit up. He was never, ever going to get out of that bedroom."
Mr Jenner said the sad aspect of the fire was that a working smoke alarm would probably have saved the elderly man's life.
"The rest of the family who were in the house at the time would have been alerted to the fire far earlier and you could probably say the gentlemen would definitely still be with us today."
He said there were no smoke alarms in the house at all. It was a message repeated constantly by the Fire Service that smoke alarms saved lives, he said.
He said the fire in the back of the house sent out a bright glow which attracted passing motorists but the other occupants of the house were still not aware the house was on fire.
Mr Jenner said smoke alarms cost only a few dollars and were a cheap and effective insurance.
He said firefighters would repeating the message about smoke alarms and if it saved one person it was worth it.
However the reality was people would continue to die because smoke alarms had not been installed.
The cause of the fire was not known and was still being investigated by fire safety officers.
- NZPA
