Northland man charged with arson after home destroyed by fire

Firefighters managed to save a shed at the Ngawhitu Rd property but the house was too far gone. Photo / Supplied

A man has been charged with arson after a house burned to the ground in the rural Mid North on Sunday night.

The alarm was raised just after 10pm on Ngawhitu Rd, west of Moerewa off Ngapipito Rd.

Three fire trucks responded from Kawakawa along with one from Kerikeri.

Kawakawa deputy fire chief Alistair Leitch said the volunteer firefighters managed to save a nearby shed but the house was almost completely destroyed.

The single-storey home, which was about 80 years old, was in use but no one was home when the brigade arrived.

With no reticulated water supply in the area the Kerikeri brigade set up a portable pump at a bridge over a nearby stream.

The firefighters were finally able to go home around 3am.

The house fire occurred on isolated Ngawhitu Rd, west of Moerewa. Photo / Google Earth

Police set up a scene guard overnight with detectives and a fire investigator searching the remains of the house for clues yesterday.

It is believed a couple and at least one child had been living in the house.

Sergeant Phil Le Comte, of Mid North police, said the extensive house fire was the subject of continuing inquiries by police and Fire and Emergency NZ.

A man had been arrested and was expected to appear in the Kaikohe District Court today

charged with arson in relation to the fire. He was held in police custody in Whangārei overnight.

It was the sixth serious house fire in the Far North in less than six weeks. All but two were in the Kawakawa-Moerewa area.

The arrested man is not connected to any of the previous five fires, with all but one deemed not suspicious.

On December 7 a family lost everything they owned in a fire on Mason Ave, Moerewa, while on December 18 a house in Tangonge Cres, Kaitaia, was destroyed in a suspicious blaze.

On Christmas Eve a family lost their home on Hautapu Rd, near Moerewa, when a fish smoker on the deck caught fire.

On New Year's Eve solo dad Tui Strachan and his eight children were left homeless after a fire on Leonard St in Kawakawa.

On January 5 a home at Umawera, on State Highway 1 north of Ōkaihau, was destroyed. The following day the Ōkaihau brigade managed to save a house at Mangamuka after a cigarette ignited the deck.