KEY POINTS:
Firefighters believe a fire that gutted a South Waikato marae meeting house was probably deliberately started.
Carvings and historic photos were lost in the blaze at the Pouakani Marae in Mangakino yesterday.
The Fire Service was alerted about 7am after a neighbour heard loud bangs and thought someone
was firing a gun.
The neighbour walked towards the marae, but did not notice the fire immediately because of heavy fog.
Firefighters from Mangakino found flames up to 15m high engulfing the Tamatea Pokai Whenua wharenui (meeting house).
More than 30 firefighters were needed to bring the blaze under control, and crews came from Taupo, Tokoroa and Putaruru.
A control unit also attended from Rotorua, and the city's deputy fire chief John Booth led the effort to stop the wharenui being completely destroyed.
"We concentrated on rescuing some of the carvings on the outside of the building," he said.
"It's always sad to see such a building have a major fire in it."
The firefighters took about an hour to quell the blaze and were able to prevent it spreading to a wharekai (dining room) attached to the meeting house, which was built in the 1950s.
But only a couple of carvings from outside could be saved, and 95 per cent of the wharenui is in ruins.
Mr Booth said the cause of the fire was not known but fire safety officers and police were investigating.
"At this stage, we're treating the fire as suspicious," he said.
The time of day and the fact the building was unoccupied pointed to arson.
Mangakino has had several arsons this year, and the meeting house is the third in the country to fall victim to fire in eight months.
In September, the wharenui at Whetu o Te Rangi Marae in Tauranga was destroyed, and last month, several buildings at Te Huki Marae near Wairoa burned to the ground.
Neither the Te Huki Marae nor the wharenui at Pouakani Marae had sprinklers.
The wharenui did have smoke alarms.
The Fire Service says iwi should install alarms and sprinklers on marae.
"Marae are significant buildings, the wharenui especially," Mr Booth said.
"If a fire breaks out when they're unoccupied, they're going to lose a lot of their history."
The Fire Service's national Maori adviser, Piki Thomas, went to Mangakino yesterday and said the people at Pouakani Marae were devastated.
"They'll never, ever replace what they had in there with the photos and carvings and other Maori cultural pieces of art."
