Passing mate helps save victim of fire

Leslie Redshaw saw his mate Fred on fire. Photo / Sarah Ivey

Leslie Redshaw screamed a warning to his old mate Fred moments before a fireball exploded behind him, catapulting him forward.

The 73-year-old was thrown from the porch of his Avondale home - his thick grey hair and nylon jacket fully alight - about 5.30am yesterday.

Mr Redshaw was riding past on his bicycle and bent down to cover his face as flames billowed out within centimetres of him. When he looked up Fred was lying on the ground screaming.

"I ran over and took the towel off him, because he always has one around his neck, and smothered him with that,"said Mr Redshaw.

"He had a nylon jacket on and he wouldn't take it off, so I dragged him out and rolled him on the wet grass."

Mr Redshaw then "rushed through like a lunatic knocking doors down" to call the fire brigade, forgetting he had his cellphone.

He said police had told him he was the hero of the day. "I said I didn't want to be, I was just Johnny-on-the-spot."

Fred, whose hair, scalp and arm were burned, kept saying "Thank you dear brother, thank you dear brother". He was last night in the Middlemore Hospital burns unit in a stable condition. A middle-aged man named Tai was also treated for minor burns and discharged.

He and the four other tenants who were inside escaped through windows as fire consumed the hallway.

Joe Manutui, 26, was praying in his room when he smelled petrol and saw smoke coming through the door cracks. He punched through a window pane, cutting his knuckles, and jumped out.

Emergency tape encircled the charred house yesterday morning. Three blackened chairs were upturned on the front verge near a heat-warped rubbish bin. Fred's singed Bible lay on the ground.

Police said they were treating the blaze as suspicious but the property was handed back to the owner for insurance assessment.

Mr Redshaw said a group of people had been drinking at the house the night before. He suspected there was "an argument and then someone did something stupid".

He said Fred - who ignored parties - had sat on the porch in his chair.

Landlord Melissa He said she had had enough. "I had given them notice and they kept asking me to extend it and extend it. This is a social problem, not a landlord's problem," she said. "These people are starting fires on the street, they don't have any sense of safety. This is Central Auckland, we are close to town."

Fire safety officer Russell Dickson said the house was structurally wrecked and would likely be bulldozed. It did not have smoke alarms.