Kingston rental home completely destroyed by fire
A temporarily unoccupied Kingston rental house was burnt to the ground during the early hours of this morning.
Around 15 volunteer firefighters worked through the night to get the blaze fully under control.
The alarm was raised by a neighbour who dialled 111 at around 1.50am, 11 June, with Kingston Volunteer Fire Brigade members on the Oxford Street site quickly.
They were joined soon after by Frankton Brigade firefighters but the fire was well involved when they arrived.
Thankfully, nobody was inside.
It took firefighters until after 5am to get the blaze under control, but Fire and Emergency Otago Lakes Group assistant commander Nic McQuillan says the house was completely destroyed and razed to the ground.
FENZ investigators began working at the scene today and will continue their investigations, but McQuillan says there were no suspicious circumstances, and the extent of the damage means the cause of the fire is unlikely to be determined.
The home was owned by an ex-pat Kiwi living in Queenstown, who is currently on holiday. Workers from a Queenstown company were due to move in as tenants very soon, a Kingston Brigade crew leader Jim McCaffery says.
A large work shed on the property was starting to be affected but McCaffery says firefighters managed to save that.
McQuillan says the owner has been notified. “Luckily the house was unoccupied at the time.”
It was the third house fire in the Wakaipu Basin in the past month, with the other two on Frankton Road and at Closeburn, and McQuillan says it’s a good reminder to people to check their smoke alarms are working, have their chimneys swept and also ‘keep a metre from the heater’ when drying clothes.
