KEY POINTS:
Alf Steel reckons he needs a new fence.
The 79-year-old Tamahere resident also requires several new windows and a lick of paint for the back of the house after explosions at the neighbouring Icepak coolstore rocked his home on Saturday.
Mr Steel, who these days spends most of
his time making ornate clocks, was in his office when he heard the first explosion.
"The noise was indescribable, the whole house shook and at first I started to think it could have been a plane that had crashed," he said.
Mr Steel came out into his kitchen and noticed broken glass everywhere from one of the windows.
"We [Mr Steel and his wife, Eunice] started picking it up. I didn't know what could have caused it and then there was another loud bang, which really shook the house.
"That was when I started thinking, 'Hell's bell'."
The retired builder looked across and noticed smoke coming from one of the cold storage buildings.
Within minutes friends from down the street were at the Steel home telling the elderly couple to run for their lives.
"I didn't even have time to get my medication; we left without grabbing a thing. We saw the flames and thought we were never going to have a house again."
The blasts, which claimed the life of firefighter Derek Lovell, shattered windows in the Steels' house and scattered glass throughout the living room and kitchen.
The intense heat, which a senior firefighter told the Herald was probably about 1000C at the time of the blast, blistered the paint on the back of the house and turned most of their two-metre-high fence into ash.
Looking out from his living room at the twisted and smouldering remains of the cold store, Mr Steel said he was thankful Icepak built the wooden fence a couple of years back.
"I was on their case about it for a while," he said.
"I think the fence probably took most of the blast and if it wasn't there, things could have been worse. We were at the school, which [is] about 100 metres away, and it was still too hot to stand there."
After spending an anxious night at their daughter's home in Hamilton, the couple returned to Tamahere to find their house still intact.
And yesterday, glaziers were there fitting new windows.
"We honestly thought we would have to get a new home," said Mr Steel.
The couple later found a large, round block of cheese outside the coolstore, which they have decided to auction on Trade Me, with any proceeds going to a firefighters' fund.
""I reckon if you chop it in half it'll be fine," said Mr Steel. "Who knows, but if we can raise some money for those fellas that'd be great."
