Twelve visitors had to be evacuated from a Rotorua holiday park after being rescued from a fires noticed by passing road workers.
The Rotorua Thermal Motor camp's Tangatarua Lodge caught fire about 6.30am today.
The fire service is yet to determine the cause.
Road workers fromWorks Infrastructure noticed the smoke and thought it was an odd place for a geyser.
They broke into the lodge and set off a fixed alarm on the wall and banged on the doors to wake the occupants.
Debby Pocock from England said she woke to hear what she thought was elephants running down the corridor.
"I did know which way to run because there was smoke everywhere," she said.
Barbara Denham from England said she could smell smoke.
"But I didn't think anything of it because this place smells like smoke anyway," she said.
All occupants escaped the lodge without injury.
Chief fire officer Wayne Bedford said the building did not have smoke alarms.
He said the fire was a warning to all accommodation providers that they must fit buildings with smoke alarms and have an evacuation plan in place.
He said the managers of the motor camp did not stay on site.
"We have had a hell of a time this morning trying to work out exactly how many people were in this building ... it could have easily have been a fatality."
The owners of the motor camp or their managers could not be reached.
Meanwhile, fire extensively damaged one of the offices on the top floor of the Environment Bay of Plenty building in Whakatane at the weekend.
Chief fire officer Ken Clarke said that about midday yesterday, monitored smoke alarms alerted cleaners in the building and the fire service to the fire on the top floor of the Kea St building.
It took firefighters only a few minutes to bring under control.
Fire safety officers were still to determine the cause of the blaze.
