Half a dozen fire trucks attend blaze above Napier dairy

Firefighters tackle a fire above a Bluff Hill dairy. Photo / Paul Taylor

Dozens of Hawke's Bay firefighters were scrambled to tackle a blaze above a Bluff Hill dairy yesterday, with the New Zealand Fire Service praising the dairy owners' use of smoke alarms.

Napier Fire Station station officer Bruce Botherway said a "Brigade recall" was issued to tackle the blaze at the corner of Shakespeare Rd and Coote Rd about 3.10pm.

"Six appliances from Napier and Hastings attended. It was a brigade recall so all staff had to come back."

That also included some members who had just come back from taking on the annual firefighters Sky Tower Challenge in Auckland.

The first floor of the building was "well involved" on arrival. However, the first floor of the building and the dairy below had been fully evacuated before crews arrived.

"The dairy was below so there was some water damage to the dairy below and some salvage work undertaken.

"The crews did well to extinguish the fire quickly and contain the majority of the damage to the first floor."

"It was under control relatively quickly, within 10 minutes. It just took us some time to do the salvage."

However, one firefighter was treated on scene for a minor injury.

Station officer Michael Manning said the firefighter was taken to hospital to be assessed.

"We had fire well involved on the upper levels of the building and our crews have mounted an aggressive interior attack and have cut the fire off upstairs and have been assisted by an aerial appliance (ladder truck) to do that."

"All persons were accounted for. They were out of the building when we arrived, and firefighters have done an excellent job of cutting the fire off upstairs, so the damage was limited to the upper level of the building and downstairs, which is the supermarket, is relatively unscathed."

The upper level, which was the residence of the business operator, was extensively damaged.

There were five people in the premise at the time but all had been alerted by working smoke alarms.

"The occupants were alerted to the fire by their domestic smoke alarms operating upstairs. It's just another great example of how a fire detection system, whether by a domestic fire alarm system or a commercial fire-detection system, operating to provide early warning to the occupants - allowing them to escape with their lives."

The cause of the fire is now under investigation but it is not being treated as suspicious.