Fire crews at Quality Bakers in Onekawa, Napier, after a ceiling fire yesterday. Photo / Glenn Taylor
Fire crews at Quality Bakers in Onekawa, Napier, after a ceiling fire yesterday. Photo / Glenn Taylor
A sharp response from the first fire crews to the scene of a blaze in the roof area of Quality Bakers in Onekawa yesterday prevented it spreading and causing what could have been major damage.
"It's a very pleasing result for us," the fire service's officer-in-charge Mark Magill said atthe scene as firefighters mopped up and used fans to extract smoke from the Niven St building. "It was good work."
While the full scale of the damage to the ceiling area, and to panelling around the area of the bakery's large single oven, would not be known until a full inspection was carried out, it was likely to affect production in the short term.
Apart from some structural damage there was a lot of water in the bakery area in the wake of its own sprinklers activating around 1pm and the water firefighters poured into the ceiling and roof areas.
Three appliances and an aerial firefighting unit raced to the scene, although Mr Magill said the aerial unit was not required as firefighters were shown an access area to the roof. "We had one fire crew inside and others on the roof stripped some iron off to get at it from there."
While the building had a sprinkler system and it had helped stem some of the fire it was ineffective against the blaze in the roof area.
Goodman Fielder management at the bakery were unwilling to comment about the fire's effects at this stage, although it was understood staff would be back at work, but initially in a clean-up role. It was also not known how much stock had been affected. Mr Magill said preliminary checks of the area showed the fire had broken out in an area of panelling around the oven. "We are not sure how it has caught fire."
One of the about 20 bakery staff evacuated and who watched the firefighters from across the road said it appeared the fire may have travelled up through a flue. Another said the oven had been turned off about 20 minutes earlier.
Staff at neighbouring Ullrich Aluminium initially thought they may have had a fire on their premises. "We could smell and see smoke in the building," one staff member said.
Firefighters were quickly on the scene after alarms activated. The fire was under control in 15 minutes.
