Candle, drink and cannabis linked to fiery death

BURNT OUT: The remains of the makeshift wooden bivouac in which Paul Stanley died.PHOTOS/STUART MUNRO A-051213WCSMTENT-FIRE5

A 36-year-old itinerant farm worker was very drunk and had smoked cannabis before dying in a fire in his bivouac on a Marton farm, an inquest has heard.

Paul Stanley died at a Hawkestone Rd site after a candle set the "semi-permanent wooden" shelter alight. He burned to death.

Palmerston North Coroner Carla na Nagara said while Mr Stanley had drunkenly referred to burning down the shelter as he was being assisted to his bed by a fellow worker, and he suffered depression, she didn't think he had deliberately lit the fire.

The coroner found that a candle had burned down and set alight the wooden table it was standing on some time between 11pm on December 4 and when Mr Stanley's body was found at 8.30am the next day.

Mr Stanley had arrived at the farm of Max and Suzanne Varney on October 16 . He had lived in a tent about 40 metres from the house and had built a bivouac of willows and tarpaulins near his tent, moving into it two days before his death.

On December 4 Mr Stanley had cooked dinner for everyone at the property where he and two others were working as wwoofers (willing workers on organic farms).

Mr Stanley was described by one of the workers as "8 or 9 out of 10 on a scale of drunkenness". He had also smoked cannabis and was "rambling loudly".

He was taken back to his shelter by another worker, Jason McCaskie, who lit the candle near Mr Stanley's bed and told him to blow the candle out before he went to sleep. Mr Stanley's body was found the next day when Mr Varney went to the bivouac. Fire risk management officer Kerry O'Keefe told the coroner tarpaulins covering the bivouac frame were burned away. Concrete walls were damaged, the upper half of the door had burned away and the door frame had collapsed.

"The greatest fire damage was observed in the branches above where Mr Stanley's bedside table was placed.

"Mr Stanley's body was positioned to the right of the doorway where his bed had been placed. It was lying on the ground, as the wooden bed and the mattress had completely burnt away."

Forensic pathologist Katherine White said soot deposits found in Mr Stanley's lungs and lower repository tract indicated he was alive when the fire began. His blood had a low level of carbon monoxide, inconsistent with death by smoke inhalation. There were no traumatic injuries beyond those caused by the fire, Dr White said.

His blood-alcohol reading was 296 milligrams per 100 millilitres of blood. Quetiapine, an anti-anxiety medication, which had been prescribed, and cannabis were also found. The coroner called Mr McCaskie's action in leaving a heavily intoxicated person in charge of a lit candle in a small flammable structure "at best ill-advised".

Given the nature of the death, and noting the risk of using "open flames in small flammable structures and/or while intoxicated are self-evident", the coroner made no recommendations.