Blaze guts Kaikohe rugby base

No-one likes a phone call at 2am, especially one bearing bad news - and that's what Kaikohe policeman Ian Row got early yesterday morning.
Mr Row is president of the Kaikohe Rugby Club, and the phone call was from a police colleague to tell him the clubrooms had been gutted by fire.
"I wish he'd have waited until 7am so I could have got some sleep," Mr Row said. "I don't know where we go from here."
The club was not insured.
"It would've cost $4000 a year to insure it, and the club just doesn't have that kind of money. We were struggling anyway - now I don't know what we're going to do."
The fire was in the changing sheds and toilet block building. Three of the concrete walls are still standing, but a timber extension built eight years ago was burnt to the ground.
While the clubroom is still serviceable, equipment stored in the changing shed is lost.
"There were tackle bags, the scrum machine, field markers, the controls for the lights on the field ... it's a real bugger."
With no lighting on the field, the club won't be able to train at night.
"We'll just have to see where we go from here, so we can get on with things. The reality is the building may not get built again, unless people rally around."
Kaikohe chief fire officer Bill Hutchinson said the brigade's volunteers spent two hours at the scene to dampen down the blaze.
"We stayed for so long because we didn't want any more calls coming in from people telling us about it," Mr Hutchinson said.
"The steam coming off it looks like smoke under the lights at night, so we stayed there cooling it off."
Another concern of the fire officers was the possibility there might be someone sleeping in the building - "You get lots of transients living in there."
Fire safety officer Craig Bain said there was nothing at this stage to indicate the fire was suspicious, and it may have been caused by faulty wiring.
He urged sports clubs to ensure their buildings were looked after.
"They really need to be vigilant about reporting anything and making sure things get done," he said.
• If you can help the Kaikohe Rugby Club rebuild, call Ian Row on (09) 401-0293 and leave a message.