Late-night fire guts city factory

FIRE gutted a Judea pie factory last night, destroying thousands of pies and narrowly missing nine other businesses.
The blaze at Raymons Pies in Cypress St was raging when up to 45 firefighters arrived at the scene shortly after the alarm was raised at 11.06pm.
Firefighters spent up to four hours putting out the blaze which gutted the factory.
When the Bay of Plenty Times visited the scene this morning there was a strong smell of burnt wood and plastic and a few pastries could be seen covered in soot.
Inside, there were mountains of burnt paper, now soggy, a collapsed mezzanine floor and destroyed trays and cooking and packaging equipment.
But the staff rooms and the office in the far corners at the front of the factory facing the street were intact.
Standing in the charred building, Peter Darvill, who has owned the pie factory for 25 years, said he was "reasonably calm" when he arrived at his business about 11.40pm yesterday after being alerted of the fire.
When he arrived the street was lined with fire trucks and there were up to 45 firefighters battling the blaze.
Smoke was billowing from the building.
The factory, which has 14 staff, makes about 20,000 pies a day, he said.
"There's probably thousands," Mr Darvill said when asked how many pies he thought had been lost in the blaze.
His son Rodney Darvill, who was at the scene this morning, said that although the fire was a huge loss it was lucky no one was hurt.
"At least no one died," he said.
"That's the main thing."
Senior station officer for Tauranga Fire Service, Phil Price, said the fire had broken through the roof and was "rolling" out the front of the building onto the street frontage when firefighters arrived.
Firefighters wearing breathing apparatuses used their aerial appliance to gain access to the first floor.
It's not known at this stage what caused the fire, but it is not believed to be suspicious.
Raymons Pies is the front unit in a long industrial building measuring 65m by 25m with multiple tenancies.
Each of the nine tenants are separated by a fire wall and this went some way to protect the other units, Mr Price said.
Mr Price said six fire engines and one support vehicle were at the scene last night and the firefighters' primary concern was stopping the fire spreading down the length of the building.
"We made a frontal attack and had crews down either side to prevent it spreading down the length of the building to other tenants," he said.
"There was no damage beyond Raymons Pies."
Gas and power was turned off to the entire block of units.
There were some people living towards the back of the block, but Mr Price said they were outside when firefighters arrived.
Brian Robertshaw, general manager of A1 Electrical Specialists, which sits behind Raymons Pies and is attached to the same building, this morning said he was "extremely lucky" his building came out unscathed.
He said the firewall which separates the two buildings would have saved his office and storage unit.
"We're very, very fortunate," he said.