By ROSALEEN MaCBRAYNE
Robert Morton leapt from a first-floor window when fire tore through a Mt Maunganui house early yesterday.
But the 2.30am blaze cost the life of his friend and former Feilding schoolmate, Gordon Unell Rerekura, aged 22, who had been asleep on the lounge sofa.
Mr Morton, 18, had been in bed for just 20 minutes after a night out when he woke to the sound of breaking glass.
At his bedroom door, he was met by a rush of flames that singed his arm and hair, forcing him to the window.
"I didn't even think about opening it, just smashed my way through," Mr Morton said. "It was my only choice, I suppose."
A garage roof below meant he could reach the ground 4m down in two stages, but he suffered a badly sprained ankle.
The third flatmate, Carl Sullivan - Mr Rerekura's best friend - arrived home from a late shift to find the house in Oceanbeach Rd virtually gutted.
Downstairs, Harry Tregonning, 86, heard banging before his smoke alarm activated. He ran outside in his pyjamas.
Mr Tregonning had rented the ground-floor flat for about three years and had not yet got to know the three young men who moved in upstairs six weeks ago.
Tauranga's chief fire officer, Ron Devlin, said smoke alarms on the second storey would have saved Mr Rerekura's life.
The fire was thought to have been caused by an electrical fault.
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