Unattended cooking catches alight

House fire corner Oxford/Ranfurly

A DUPLEX unit at the corner of Oxford Street and Ranfurly Road in Kaiti sustained fire and smoke damage throughout yesterday afternoon.

Firefighters said unattended cooking appeared to be the cause of the blaze.

Fire and Emergency NZ received 111 calls about it at around 2.20pm and sent two appliances to the scene.

“When the first crew arrived flames were coming out the windows,” a senior firefighter said.

‘We used a low pressure delivery first off, then made entry into the unit to tackle the fire more directly.”

A neighbour had heard the smoke alarms going off and forced entry to check on the situation before the FENZ crews got there, he said.

“It only took about 5-10 minutes to knock the fire back initially and bring it under control, then it was a matter of dampening down the remains.”

The senior firefighter said the smoke alarm in the unit was still going off when they got inside, which he said was good to see.

“But unfortunately the cooking on the stove was overlooked by the occupants.”

They returned to the badly damaged unit while the fire crews were cleaning up.

“The people living there have probably lost everything to smoke and fire damage.”