Ormond shed destroyed in a suspected electrical fire

A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.

A shed on a property at Ormond was destroyed in a fire on Saturday night and an electrical fault involving multi-boards has been blamed as the probable cause of the blaze.

Fire and Emergency NZ sent an appliance and a tanker from Gisborne, and called out the Te Karaka volunteer brigade, just before midnight.

“The shed was fully involved in fire when we arrived,” said Station Officer Barry Thomas.

“There was nothing we could do to save it.”

SO Thomas said the iron-clad shed was used as a workshop and contained a lot of tools.

“The contents of the shed were lost in the blaze.”

Specialist fire investigator Derek Goodwin was called in to establish how the fire started.

“It appears to have been an accidental cause.

“An extension cord had been run from the nearby house to the shed, and a range of electrical items were run off a number of multi-boards,” Mr Goodwin said.

“It is always a risk to run an electrical cord out to a shed like that and then run devices off multi-boards.

“Multi-boards are not designed for that sort of set up, especially when a number of boards are ‘daisy-chained’ together. In this case, it appears the multi-boards overloaded and started the fire.”

Firefighters were at the scene for more than two hours to ensure the fire was completely out.