Editorial: The night Hastings got lucky

Hastings dodged a bullet on Tuesday night.

The inferno at Hawk Packaging on Tomoana Road was almost as bad as fires get.

Fourteen fire appliances and more than 80 fire fighters, some from other North Island centres, were needed to contain the raging fire. So big was the blaze that it dwarfed fire tender ladders, the intense heat melting tyres and shattering the windscreens of fire-trucks.

The orange glow lighting the night sky could be seen from Napier and Waimarama. Residents of Hastings woke up to "Ash Wednesday" after the city was covered with ash from the mountains of cardboard trays that went up in flames.

So with all that chaos, how was it the city dodged a bullet? The inferno was only "almost as bad as fires get" for two reasons.

1: Our firefighters worked like Trojans to save the fire spreading to neighbouring buildings and houses. Without their huge effort, the fire damage would have been greater, without question.

2: It was a relatively calm night. Imagine how much damage could have been caused had it been a gusty evening, the wind blowing hot cinders further afield.

Given the scale of the fire at Hawk Packaging's site, we could well have faced a bigger disaster.

Now, there is dispute as to whether the company was or was not told that its stacks of apple trays and other material presented a fire risk.

Hawk Packaging said it was never given such a message. Hastings District Council believes the Fire Service did deliver the message after two earlier fires on the site in March and October last year.

Had someone died in this fire or private homes been burned down, this argument would be a serious one indeed.

An investigation is under way to determine the cause of the inferno but, even before that report is in, we can safely draw one conclusion: Hastings got lucky.