People rescued after boat catches fire

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Two people whose boat caught fire while they were fishing off the West Coast are safely back to shore.

The boat, from Greymouth, caught fire just after 11am today, police said.

The people aboard managed to bring the fire under control, Greymouth Coastguard operational skipper Doug Griffin said.

Local fishing boats, the coastguard and the rescue helicopter then helped in a rescue.

"The sea was just flat calm and there was three other fishing vessels in vicinity so they went to their aid as well," he said.

Another fishing vessel towed it back into Greymouth Harbour where the Fire Service was waiting.

The two people on board the boat were not injured.

"They set their life raft off, so ready in case they needed it, then they put the fire out."

Mr Griffin did not know what had caused the fire.

"If you're going to have an incident, today's the day because the sea was calm, the bar was calm...the last week or so the bar's been terrible."