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Home / New Zealand

Woman dashes to escape 'severe' blaze in Onehunga building

Ben Leahy
By Ben Leahy
Reporter·NZ Herald·
21 Apr, 2019 02:16 AM3 mins to read

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Factory fire at Argus in Onehunga

A woman was forced to quickly flee a fire that took hold in an industrial building in Auckland this afternoon.

Around 70 fire crew battled a "large and severe fire" at Argus Fire Protection in Onehunga.

Argus Fire Protection general manager Bryce Donaldson said one employee was doing administration work inside the building when the fire started.

"She noticed fire coming through the ceiling and [when] she left the building, basically the whole building was on fire within a minute," Donaldson said.

Donaldson said the woman got out safely and no one else was in the building.

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He said the company was "devastated" but they had continuity plans in place to get through the incident, adding they'd be back up and running on Tuesday.

"This is the main head office, we've got five other branches as well we can work from," Donaldson said.

"As the general manager of the company, it's devastating and it's something we don't sort of expect in our own building.

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Fire incident controller Murray Binning said the cause of the fire is unknown at this stage.

The blaze reached a fourth alarm, which means between 15 to 20 appliances arrived at the scene with approximately 60 to 70 crew members.

"It's a relatively large and severe fire, the initial crews did an excellent job in cutting the fire off," Binning said.

"We've deployed a couple of aerial appliances and we've also got crews inside on interior attack with hose lines," he said.

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Dave Pene, who witnessed the fire take off, said after spotting the blaze he ran inside to get his wife to call the fire brigade.

"By the time I had came back out the glass [window] had blown out and away she went, she just roared," he said.

"Even before the appliances arrived she was hell out ... when the window blew out [the fire] just rushed out and this whole block started to blow out.

"Once she got a bit of air she was gone, like within 15 minutes [the Argus Protection building] roof started collapsing."

Pene's appliance was across the road and said fire crews arrived on the scene within minutes, "it was fantastic".

Not only did fire crews do an amazing job preventing the fire from spreading to the metal warehouse, but a fertiliser company is also located on the other side and Pene said if the fire had reached there the whole block would have gone up.

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Unfortunately, the Mr Gordon's Laundry Service worker said the smoke from the fire damaged his place of work.

"It's a shame because all the work we just did this morning at the laundry, it's all smoke damaged now," Pene said.

"It's back to square one, all our clients are going to be affected ... it's not good."

He believed one woman was located at the back of the Argus building when the fire first ignited.

Binning said it is believed no one has been hurt by the fire at this stage, however.

Fire 🔥 Neilson St, Onehunga road closed pic.twitter.com/wkrap6IfRV

— Dr Marewa Glover (@MarewaGlover) April 21, 2019

Dr Marewa Glover told the Herald she just drove past the fire and the smoke has gone from dark black to white and it looks as though it's under control.

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Fire in Onehunga @nzherald pic.twitter.com/vTcqgnAvjA

— Scott 🇳🇿 (@STML34) April 21, 2019
Fire crew talk to members of the public at the scene of the industrial fire. Photo / Dean Purcell
Fire crew talk to members of the public at the scene of the industrial fire. Photo / Dean Purcell
Fire crew at the scene of the industrial fire. Photo / Dean Purcell
Fire crew at the scene of the industrial fire. Photo / Dean Purcell

The road closed off and fire teams have asked people to avoid the area.

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