Firefighters were powerless to save a house near Pawarenga in the early hours of Friday morning.
A North Hokianga man has lost his house and all its contents to fire in the early hours of Friday morning.
Fire crews from Kaitaia, Ahipara and Kohukohu responded just before 2am, arriving at the remote location, about a kilometre up what Senior Station Officer Ross Beddows described as a
goat track off Pawarenga Road, at 2.45.
"The house was collapsing at that stage, fully engulfed in fire," he said.
"The appliances had to negotiate a narrow, wet, muddy access road to the hilltop property, and water was scarce. We initially used what was in the house tank, but that was less than 3000 litres, and didn't last long."
Crews pumped water "a considerable distance" to Kohukohu's appliance, which then pumped it up to the fire, but all the firefighters could do was drag sheets of roofing iron out of the debris to enable dampening down.
