KEY POINTS:
A 22-year-old man has been arrested over a series of fires in Hamilton overnight, including a blaze which forced the evacuation of a private hospital.
A wheelie bin was set alight against the wall of Braemar Hospital in suburban Frankton around 2.40am.
The flames spread to the hospital's
ceiling vent and into an X-ray room containing an MRI scanner.
Waikato and Bay of Plenty Assistant Fire Commander Roy Breeze said the sprinkler system extinguished the fire, but appeared to have caused water damage to equipment.
While the repair bill could run into the millions, Mr Breeze said it was preferable to what could have happened without the sprinklers.
"It would have been far worse. The place would have been burnt out. (The fire) would have taken off quite fast."
There were 32 bedridden patients staying at the hospital, with the nearest ward just 15 metres from the X-ray room.
Staff acted quickly to evacuate after fire alarms went off and smoke and flames were spotted at the front of the building, he said.
Ambulances and buses were called to help move patients with half being taken to "safe areas" and 10 shifted to another hospital.
Braemar Hospital CEO Paul Bennett said insurance assessors will be in this afternoon to look at the damage, the cost of which is not known.
He said the hospital's systems "worked perfectly" with the sprinklers coming on, an automatic alarm sounded with the fire brigade who arrived within minutes with ambulance staff.
He said patients were evacuated by staff.
"There was a smell of smoke in that part of the hospital and rather than cause them discomfort, they were transferred to our other hospital," Mr Bennett said.
He said surgery had to be cancelled this morning but the hospital would be "up and going" this afternoon.
He said it could have been a lot worse.
"Look at that Mitre 10 building up in Auckland two weeks ago. We're fully sprinklered here, all of our smoke detectors and our emergency plan kicked in and worked brilliantly," Mr Bennett said.
More than 30 firefighters and eight fire appliances brought the blaze under control. A main gas pipe was burned through and hoses were used to keep a gas cloud away from the hospital until the line could be switched off.
Over the next half hour a car and rubbish were set alight in Queens Ave, in the same general area, as well as a skip bin at Hamilton Girls' High School and a phone box on Lake Road.
Two men spotted acting suspiciously in the area were spoken to, police said.
One was arrested and will appear in Hamilton District Court today charged in connection with three of the fires.
- NZPA
