Owner of shop that burned down in Sanson 'devastated'

The owner of a shop in Sanson which burned down last night is "devastated" and says the two-storey building has been reduced to rubble.

Barry Daily has owned the Passionz Unique Imports and Home Decor for about nine years, and said he was still shaken this morning after nearly a decade of his hard work burned to the ground.

"I'm just devastated," he said.

"You build a business up for 10 years and you get it absolutely humming, and within five minutes it's all gone."

Daily did not know the cause of the fire yet, but said it started in the back of the building.

He and his wife closed the shop about 4.30pm and headed out of town to go grocery shopping, but rushed back shortly after 5pm when they started receiving phone calls telling them the shop was on fire.

"We raced home and saw the flames [while we were] coming back from Feilding. Only the back was burning when we got there, we thought they might save the shop."

But as soon as a window shattered the fire took over the rest of the building, he said.

Now it is "just rubble".

"You wouldn't even know that anything was even in there."

Daily said the location was a "good spot", and he had been doing "December numbers" since lockdown ended. Now he was unsure what his future held - he had a suspicion he had only insured the contents of the shop, but not the shop itself.

He is meeting with his insurance provider this morning.

Daily said there was a residence attached to the shop which belonged to an elderly woman, and it had burned down too. The woman was not caught in the fire.

He said the house had been there since 1940 and had operated "one of the best restaurants in New Zealand" for about 20 years.

Neighbours and other locals came together last night to make sure everyone was okay, and worked together to push the resident's car out of the fire's reach.

Daily said he spoke to one of the people who pushed the car out of the way, who had suffered burns to his hands from pushing on the hot metal.

"It sounds like everyone came and jumped in, and everyone's happy that she's alright."

Fire risk management officer Anna Gordon was at the scene this morning to investigate the cause of the blaze.

She said it was good there were smoke alarms installed in the building, as it contributed to the resident escaping safely.

The woman was not inside when the fire started - she had stepped outside just before.

Gordon said Fire and Emergency New Zealand were working alongside the police to determine the cause of the fire, but at this stage the investigation had only just started.

Sanson local Stephen Gill, who lives around the corner, said last night tankers were forced to go back and forth from the water reservoir because the main road had no water supply.

A St John spokeswoman said one person suffered minor injuries in the blaze. One ambulance was sent to treat the person, who did not need hospital treatment.