Marae fire fails to dishearten whanau

Dale van Engelen stands outside the the charred remains of the old wharekai at Whakapara Marae. Photo / John Stone

The building may be a mass of charred remains but the memories created inside the building will never be lost.

That was how Whakapara Marae chairwoman Dale van Engelen said whanau would face the destruction of their old wharekai.

The wharekai at Whakapara Marae, 23km north-west of Whangarei, was razed by an electrical fire in a fridge early yesterday but already those from the marae were looking forward and taking positives from the destruction. The one-storey wharekai, or food hall, had been the place where memories had been made over many years of preparing food for weddings, birthdays and tangi and they would never be lost.

"It's quiet a crucial building for us. Once the fire was out we gathered together with the firefighters and had a karakia. We will honour and remember those who put this here," Ms van Engelen said.

"We have to grieve but then we have to look forward ... we don't want to dwell on this."

The alarm was raised by a passing logging truck driver who saw flames coming from the wharekai, in Puhipuhi Rd, about 4am. He stopped and ran round the burning building to check no one was inside. Firefighters from Hikurangi, Onerahi, Ngunguru, Whananaki and Whangarei brigades fought the blaze using water from a river nearby. The building was bought from Marsden Point Oil Refinery and moved on to the marae complex in the 1970s.

Ms van Engelen said a new wharekai, next to the wharenui, was well under way, with the opening scheduled for the end of May.

Once that had been finished, the old 140 sq m building Te Aranga Ake, known by the whanau as Kokiri, was going to be used as an arts and training centre for marae and community programmes.

"We have a vision for the marae so that building was going to do that by bringing people in for arts and environment projects."

The building was insured and, once an assessor had visited, there would be a meeting for the marae committee to decide what would happen next.

"The support the firefighters gave us was amazing."

Kapa haka practise for the opening of the new wharekai was going ahead last night. Fire safety officer Craig Bain said an electrical fault in the motor unit of a double glass door fridge was the most likely cause of the blaze.