Firefighters had a dreaded sense of deja vu last night when they were called to a factory fire in the same street as the devastating blaze at Metal Man Recyclers last year. A long-established joinery factory in Koromiko St, Judea, was just minutes away from being fully engulfed after electrical wiringshorted, setting fire to a saw bench and internal wall, Tauranga Fire Station Officer Grant Taylor said. The factory is directly across the road from Metal Man Recyclers, which in March last year, exploded into a fire that tore through the Judea warehouse, leaving one man badly injured and the building extensively damaged. Mr Taylor said a bus driver noticed smoke rising from the neighbouring factory about 7.30pm and called 111. On arrival, firefighters found a saw bench ablaze at the back of the building. After putting that fire out, they broke into the factory, only to find the other side of the wall was also on fire. Mr Taylor said it appeared the electrical wiring had shorted after years of rubbing and was exposed through a hole in some corrugated iron. Below that was the saw bench and a pile of sawdust. "In another 10 minutes it could have been a totally different story ... The damage was minimal and it was purely a case of the timing that the bus driver saw the smoke," Mr Taylor said.
