Increase in property fires – FENZ warns beware
With a spate of property fires around the Wakatipu Basin in recent months, the most recent destroying a tiny house at Glenorchy last Wednesday, Fire and Emergency NZ staff are warning people to take basic precautions.
Fire completely engulfed and destroyed the sleepout-tiny house in Birley Rise, just outside Glenorchy, with two volunteer Queenstown Fire crews and a Glenorchy Fire crew all involved in fighting the blaze, which started about 2.30pm.
A FENZ spokesperson says the fire was well involved by the time the crews arrived and they’d called for their water tanker on route. It appeared that a digger on the site was used to help pull the building apart and fully extinguish the fire with crews finally leaving the site at 6.40pm. FENZ Otago Lakes group assistant commander Nic McQuillan says fire crews had to shuttle water using tankers and cool log cylinders that had been affected by the fire from a distance. A FENZ fire investigator was investigating but the cause of the fire may be difficult to ascertain due to the extent of the fire and evidence being destroyed.
He says there had been at least one other property fire in a sleepout in Glenorchy in recent months and a number of property fires at Hanley’s Farm, some of those due to people not disposing of cigarette butts outside houses appropriately, or ash from fireplaces.
In November Police were called to a suspected arson in Shiel Street Glenorchy where fire crews were fighting a large out of control property fire centred in a shed and sleepout.
Early last month fire crews also turned out in force to battle a significant fire at Arthur’s Point which threatened houses and came dangerously close. In some areas McQuillan says flames were lapping within 2m of the homes. Police moved residents to safety. Swift work by fire crews also got a mass scrub fire under control alongside the Gibbston Trail at Morven Ferry four days earlier.
“That Arthur’s Point fire was started due to inappropriate disposal of hot ashes from a fireplace that were placed on a garden compost area,” McQuillan says. Queenstown, Frankton Arrowtown and Glenorchy Fire crews fought hard to contain the blaze which put multiple houses at risk, he says.
A temporarily unoccupied Kingston rental house was completely destroyed and razed to the ground last winter, around 15 volunteer firefighters working through the night to get the blaze fully under control.
“We’ve been having more property fires lately and inappropriately disposing of ashes and cigarette butts have been to blame in a number of these,” McQuillan says.
“Ashes from fires need to be cooled adequately in metal containers and make sure they’re properly out before you put them in the garden or anywhere,” he says. “Don’t smoke near a property or house and keep a bucket of sand outside to dispose of butts in.”
Some recent fires were due to the warmer temperatures and drier late summer conditions too, he says.
McQuillan says it’s also that time of year when chimneys should be swept for winter. “We usually start to see chimney fires at this time so get it swept before you light that first fire.”
“People don’t think to check. We are no longer in a prohibited fire season locally, but people still need to apply for a permit to have any fire in the open.”
A Givealittle page has been set up for Hannah and Jesse, who lost their home in the Glenorchy fire, you can donate at givealittle.co.nz
