"It's just devastating."
Ms Hazel, who had not slept since the fire, was attending a funeral yesterday afternoon before flying overseas last night.
She said she was exhausted but relieved she was insured.
A concerned neighbour called emergency services and the fire service contacted Ms Hazel who arrived shortly after.
"The good thing I have got to say is I think the fire service do an amazing job. They had loads of firemen out there and about 80 per cent of them would have been volunteers," she said.
"It's an amazing service. They're out there risking their own lives."
The tenant of the property had gone hunting and returned home to find the house ablaze with firefighters working to put it out.
"The house would have burned down to the ground, it would have gone completely had it not been for the windows being closed," Ms Hazel said.
She said the fire had become starved of air inside the lounge area, and had not been able to spread further into the house before firefighters arrived.
The extensive damage had been mostly contained to the lounge area but the rest of the house had suffered smoke damage.
The home had two working smoke alarms, correctly placed on the ceiling.
Bill Rackham, fire investigator for the Bay of Plenty Coast area, said it was too early to suggest what the cause of the fire was, but he was not treating the incident as suspicious.
"We are treating it as accidental at this stage," Mr Rackham said.
He expected to know more by the end of the week.
