A Porirua firefighter drags a hose through the Porirua stream to gain access to the scrub fire at the northern end of the railway station. JAMES PAUL
Firefighters battled a large scrub fire near Porirua Station this morning.
Fire Service central communications relieving shift manager Belinda Beets said the Porirua Fire Brigade were sent to 1 Station Road East, near Piggy Packers Rentals at about 10.20am to extinguish a large area of blazing toetoe flax.
Crew members clambered over a fence and through Porirua Stream with fire hoses to gain better access to the fire. Plumes of smoke could be seen a couple of kilometres away in the centre of Porirua.
Porirua Fire Brigade battle a scrub fire just outside Piggy Packers Rentals boundary, at the northern end of the railway station. JAMES PAUL
The blaze was extinguished about midday, and no-one was injured.
One bystander, who was at the scene before the two fire engines arrived, said he saw a man on top of a container with a phone in one hand and a hose in another, trying to put out the flames.
It was not yet known how the fire started.
A bystander watches as firefighters try to gain better access to a scrub fire that rages at the northern end of Porirua Station. JAMES PAUL
VIRGINIA FALLON/FAIRFAX NZ The makeshift camp is in a stand of pine trees by Porirua’s Te Wananga O Aotearoa on Heriot Street.
A homeless man thought to have been sleeping rough near Porirua is in hospital with serious burns after firefighters found him near death.
The 41-year-old man – found around 4.30pm on Thursday near the local shopping mall, north of Wellington – was initially taken to Hutt Hospital, then to the National Burns Centre at Auckland’s Middlemore Hospital on Monday.
He has undergone several surgical procedures.
VIRGINIA FALLON/FAIRFAX NZ The scene of a fire on June 29 where a man – thought to be homeless – was badly injured.
He is in a serious but stable condition, a hospital spokeswoman said.
Detective Senior Sergeant Grant Ferguson said police were continuing to investigate the cause of the fire and wanted to hear from anyone who was in the area at the time.
GOOGLE MAPS A 41-year-old man was found by firefighters with serious burns as they attended a fire in trees behind Porirua’s North City Plaza on Thursday.
“In particular, we would like to identify a man seen walking away from the scene in a northerly direction, along the grass bank,” Ferguson said.
The man is described as Caucasian, 30 to 40 years old, of medium height and build and wearing long black pants and a grey puffer-type jacket.
He was carrying a grey or black backpack and witnesses described him as ‘scruffy’ and thought he may also have been living rough.
On Thursday, a witness to the fire said the burnt man’s body and clothes were “smoking when he was dragged out of the pine trees”.
Firefighters doused him with water before he was taken away by ambulance, she said.
Another witness, who did not want to be named, said he had seen a man “walking very quickly” away from the area.
On Tuesday, the charred remains of a makeshift camp remained among trees near Porirua’s Te Wananga O Aotearoa on Heriot Drive.
Branches had been used to make a shelter and burned clothes, bedding, food and cooking utensils were strewn among the pine needles.
If you have information that could help the police investigation call Porirua Police on 04 238 1400.
It’s the beginning of a new era for firefighters around the country, with the establishment of Fire and Emergency New Zealand (FENZ).
From 1 July 2017, Fire and Emergency New Zealand is replacing the New Zealand Fire Service. Photo: Supplied / Fire and Emergency New Zealand
The new organisation will merge the country’s 40 rural, urban, career and volunteer fire services, and bring together over 14,000 staff, including 11,300 volunteers and 2800 career firefighters and support staff.
Rural firefighters in action Photo: Supplied / Fire and Emergency New Zealand
Tomorrow marks day one of the organisation, as the Fire and Emergency New Zealand Act comes into effect, replacing the 40-year-old Fire Services Act.
FENZ national commander of urban fire and emergency Paul McGill said the changes meant their work responding to emergencies such as car crashes, medical calls, and weather events would be legally mandated.
He said firefighters around the country now attended more medical emergencies and car crashes than burning buildings and scrub fires.
“We’re really excited about [the changes]. We think it’s really time to bring all the services together so Saturday’s a big day for us, it will give us the mandate we need to take on all the non-fire work we’ve been doing for quite a while and will help to improve the service significantly.”
“The legislation we have been operating under is over 40 years old and doesn’t recognise all the non-fire work that firefighters doing today, so this brings that up to date.”
He said the new organisation could also provide a more coordinated response and better support for volunteers.
“With over 40 services now, they do differ in the resourcing they have, and the training they get, so we will be able to bring all that together to provide consistent service right around the country.”
But Professional Firefighters Union secretary Derek Best said he was worried there might still be a divide between rural and urban firefighters, and that could spark confusion around who would be in charge when firefighters attended a callout.
“We still have the artificial barrier between urban and rural, and that seems to be going to continue for a little while, but that’s what causes the problem – like in Wellington, the Mount Victoria area is classified as rural, which is a nonsense in terms of who is available to respond to any incidents that happen there.”
But Richard McNamara, the principal rural fire officer for Marlborough, disagreed, saying that wouldn’t get in the way of them doing their job.
“How we interact with each other comes down to command and control, and there are some very clear guidelines put out by FENZ about how that’s going to operate.
“Provided we stick to the game plan and are prepared to talk to each other, then it will go well.”
The new organisation will be funded in the same way as the Fire Service, mainly from levies paid on property, contents and car insurance.
The restructure is expected to cost about $300 million.
Firefighters respond to a car crash in the 2000s: The new arrangement will do a better job of recognising the non-fire work that firefighters do, FENZ says. Photo: Supplied / Fire and Emergency New Zealand
Adriana Weber, Emergency Services Reporter – Radio New Zealand
The house in Cannons Creek, Porirua, was fully ablaze just after 9am on Thursday. RAJ PRATAP
Vasati Lopati tried desperately to beat out the flames leaping up her living room walls.
Her young nieces and nephew, staying for the school holidays, ran for their lives as she fought the fire that was beginning to lick at the ceiling of her home in the Porirua suburb of Cannons Creek on Thursday.
Lopati knew she would lose everything if she could not extinguish the fire, so she stayed inside until the windows began to explode.
Vasati Rosana Lopati has lost everything in the fire at her rented home in Champion St. RAJ PRATAP
Minutes later she joined her family on the footpath and watched as everything they owned was destroyed.
Husband Muaau was driving his taxi when he heard about the fire. “We’ve lost everything. We have nothing left now,” he said.
Firefighters finally got the upper hand, but only after a second crew was called in to help. RAJ PRATAP
“It started in the living room but the only things in there were the computer and the TV, and they weren’t on.”
The couple, originally from Samoa, had lived in the house for four years and did not have contents insurance.
Muaau Lopati said he was grateful a smoke alarm had alerted his family to the fire so they could get out in time.
The house was gutted by the fire, which started in the living room. RAJ PRATAP
The couple are now appealing for help to replace their lost possessions.
“We have no clothes, no beds and the children have no shoes.”
The property’s owner, who did not want to be named, said the couple were “lovely, friendly” people who kept to themselves.
He had offered them another home, just up the road from the one that burned, but it was not perfect, he said.
“I was plastering it this morning when the fire happened. It isn’t ideal, but at least they have a roof over their heads.”
Fire Service central communications shift manager Murray Dunbar said four fire engines were sent to the Champion St property shortly before 9am. The blaze was extinguished about 90 minutes later.
Porirua fire investigator Russell Postlewaight believed the fire in the lounge may have been caused by electronics.
“The two ladies in the house were alerted by the working smoke alarm that happened to be at that end of the house, and they managed to escape uninjured.
“The severity of the fire in the lounge was so [strong] that, at that end of the house, it would have been unsurvivable.”
At one point, the fire got so bad that the officer in charge had called for a full second team to help.
Firefighters were particularly concerned about the heavy concrete tiles falling from the burning roof above.
About half the ceiling of the old timber house was burned.
From left, Porirua volunteer firefighters Osi Meavao, Xan Ioane, Alamaine Thomas and Paul Setefano will take part in the Sky Tower Stair Challenge in May. – PAUL SETEFANO
Putting a pack on his back and climbing up and down the stairwells of a Wellington office building is not Paul Setefano’s idea of fun, but it has to be done.
The long-time Porirua volunteer firefighter will be taking part in his eighth Sky Tower Stair Challenge on May 13.
The record 900 participants – organisers are starting to put a cap on entrants due to numbers increasing each year – will be dressed in full firefighter gear with 25kg of equipment on their back.
Then they have to ascend the Sky Tower’s 1103 steps, or 51 floors, all in the name of raising money for Leukaemia & Blood Cancer New Zealand.
Setefano said it got a bit harder each year, but he and the three others from the Porirua station were dedicated.
“Our focus has more been on the fundraising, so the hard part is done before we get to [the Sky Tower],” he said. “We fundraise together but the onus is on you to do the training.
“Once we’re there in Auckland, it’s just a case of taking a big breath and doing it.
“My training always goes out the window and it takes me ages to get to the top – I ask myself why I do it each time.”
He spends a few lunchtimes each week, going down in the lift in his office building, climbing the stairs, and then repeating.
“I get a few funny looks and if anyone is silly enough to ask why, I tell them.”
Setefano will be joined by fellow Porirua firefighters Xan Ioane, Alamaine Thomas and Osi Meavao.
Firefighters from the Tawa, Plimmerton and Titahi Bay volunteer brigades will also be taking part, shaking buckets outside supermarkets in the coming weeks prior to the big day.
Setefano and his Porirua teammates did brilliantly in 2014, topping the money-raised leaderboard as they raised more than $40,000 in five months.
The last few years they have not put in “crazy hours” like they did that time, he said, but the hope is till to raise $10,000 for the cause.
In 2016, firefighters from across New Zealand collected $1.1 million through sponsorship and hitting the streets with fundraising buckets.
Te Kura Maori O Porirua was also damaged by an arsonist in 2006. School trustee Tui looks over the gutted new entrants block. ROSS GIBLIN/FAIRFAX NZ
Te Kura Maori O Porirua saved for eight years to buy its school van, which has now been torched in a suspected arson overnight that also damaged two classrooms.
The full immersion school north of Wellington has a school roll of 252 pupils, who are due to return soon for the first term of the year.
Principal Sophie Tukukino said she was called out to the school about 1.30am on Tuesday to find the school van ablaze.
A fire at a Porirua school has wrecked its van that it saved for eight years to buy. SIMON MAUDE/FAIRFAX NZ
The fire also damaged some nearby classrooms, and a staffroom wall.
The van was parked on a covered walkway on the school grounds, and Tukukino said she was saddened it had been targeted. It was used to ferry pupils to activities and the library.
“We were really proud of being able to purchase it. It cost a lot of money – it was a big investment for the school.”
Safety glass on classroom windows appeared to have prevented the fire spreading further, as they withstood the heat and did not burst.
“We’re fortunate that there was very little wind last night,” Tukukino said.
It looked to her as if someone had tried to break into the van first.
The suspicious fire was not the first at the school. In 2006, two deliberately lit fires destroyed four classrooms in the new entrants block.
That arson turned out to be the handiwork of culprits “with nothing to do”, Tukukino said.
The school had received support from the police, the Fire Service and Ministry of Education. It was insured and hoped to be able to replace the van and repair the damage to the buildings.
Porirua Fire Station confirmed its night shift firefighters attended the callout, which had been recorded as suspicious and required four fire engines to quell.
Police and fire investigators are at the scene of a badly damaged Porirua house, where Gazza the police dog was shot and killed last month.
The fire was at the house on Kokiri Crescent where gunman Pita Tekira fatally shot Gazza on April 22. The fire started about 10.45pm on Sunday.
Fire service assistant area commander Gareth Hughes said when firefighters arrived, flames were coming out the side windows of the house.
A fire gutted a Porirua home over night. – Supplied
The blaze was out out by 11.30pm and no-one was found inside the property, Hughes said.
The Kokiri Cres house the morning after the fire. – Rob Kitchin/Fairfax NZ
“It’s very badly damaged, I’m sure there’s structural stability inside, but it’s very badly damaged,” Hughes said.
Seven fire trucks and firefighters from Porirua, Johnsonville and Wellington attended the fire.
Emergency services were called to the blaze on Sunday night. – ROSS GIBLIN
Emergency services maintained a presence at the site overnight.
Police confirmed the house was the same one where Gazza was shot, before Tekira moved up the street to another house, where he eventually took his own life.
Police senior sergeant Andrzej Kowalczyk said initial reports from the Fire Service indicated there was some “cause for concern” that the fire was suspicious.
However, police would not be able to confirm that till they met with a fire investigator at the scene later in the morning, he said.
FIRE SOUNDED LIKE ‘GUNSHOTS’
Simon Paul, who lives next door to the burnt-out house heard sounds like “gunshots” at about 10.30pm on Sunday.
The sounds were actually “the walls of the house blowing out”, he said.
Emergency services were at the scene of the blaze on Kokiri St late on Sunday night. – ROSS GIBLIN
While there was nobody in the house, there was a family in an adjoining house, he said.
“An Asian woman came out screaming,” Paul said. “They were asleep. The whole family was in there.”
Daniel Lawrence, whose lives over the road, confirmed the woman who had lived in the house was at some point the partner of Tekira.
The damage viewed from a neighbouring property. – SAGATO NAFATALI
She had been away since the shooting, but had returned to grab some stuff, he said.
A neighbour, who did not want to be named, said she was called outside by her husband on Sunday night, after hearing what she initially thought was the sound of fireworks going off.
When they got outside, they saw the neighbouring two-storey property was well ablaze.
The house on Kokiri Street was gutted by the blaze. – ROSS GIBLIN
The flames were so intense they had to jump the fence to a neighbouring property away from the fire, she said.
Her husband pulled their car out of their driveway away from the flames.
The neighbour said nobody had been in the house for a week, since the siege.
The blaze was brought under control on Sunday night. – ROSS GIBLIN
The street had been expecting something like this to happen to the houses involved in the siege, she said.
Police were door-knocking the street’s residents about midnight, as firefighters continued dampening down the house’s interior.
At the scene on Monday morning, guards keep watch over the gutted house, where the light green paint has melted from the heat of the fire.
A neighbour said the house was the same property where police dog Gazza was shot. – ROSS GIBLIN
Daylight can be seen shining through the house, with no internal walls left to speak of.
A green and yellow plastic swing is hanging from the pohutukawa tree in the front yard unharmed by the fire that was just metres away.
The street at the centre of last month’s Porirua siege has been hit by drama again.
A house on Kokiri Crescent where gunman Pita Tekira fatally shot police dog Gazza on April 22 was gutted by a house fire began about 10.45pm on Sunday.
Fire service assistant area commander Gareth Hughes said when firefighters arrived, flames were coming out of all the windows on the house’s right-hand side.
Emergency services were called to the blaze on Sunday night. -ROSS GIBLIN
The blaze was extinguished by 11.30pm and no one was found inside the property, Hughes said
The cause of the fire was not yet clear. Fire safety investigators were on their way to the scene late on Sunday night.
“It’s very badly damaged, I’m sure there’s structural stability inside, but it’s very badly damaged at this stage,” Hughes said.
Seven fire engines and personnel from Porirua, Johnsonville and Wellington attended the blaze. Emergency services would maintain a presence at the site overnight.
Emergency services were at the scene of the blaze on Kokiri St late on Sunday night. -ROSS GIBLIN
A neighbour, who did not want to be named, said the burnt-out house was where the siege started on April 22, when Tekira shot Gazza before moving up the street to another house, where he eventually took his own life.
Hughes was unable to say whether the second siege house would be placed under guard following the blaze, referring questions to police.
The house’s neighbour said she was called outside by her husband on Sunday night, after hearing what she initially thought was the sound of fireworks going off.
When they got outside, they saw the neighbouring two-storey property was well ablaze.
The flames were so intense they had to jump the fence to a neighbouring property away from the fire, she said.
Her husband pulled their car out of their driveway away from the flames.
The neighbour said nobody had been in the house for a week, since the siege.
The street had been expecting something like this to happen to the houses involved in the siege, she said.
The damage viewed from a neighbouring property. – SAGATO NAFATALI
Police were door-knocking the street’s residents about midnight, as firefighters continued dampening down the house’s interior.
The house on Kokiri Street was gutted by the blaze. – ROSS GIBLIN
The blaze was brought under control on Sunday night. – ROSS GIBLIN
A neighbour said the house was the same property where police dog Gazza was shot. – ROSS GIBLIN
A view from Paremata on February 21, 2010, looking towards the fire in Whitireia Park – Supplied
Russell Postlewaight had not long poured himself a scotch when he saw the smoke.
Porirua’s chief fire safety officer lives in Paremata and has a fantastic view looking towards Porirua Harbour and Whitireia Park. On the evening of Sunday, February 21, 2010, he was settling down when he spotted telltale tendrils of smoke above Shelley Bay on the other side of the water.
“In no time the smoke had become flames and I thought, ‘No good can come of this’. I watched it all develop and it lit up the sky.”
The huge blaze caused hundreds of people on Gloaming Hill to be evacuated and briefly threatened the Titahi Golf Club.
In the end, 30 hectares was charred by the blaze, and it took years to recover.
The cost to fight the fire and to the park was estimated at more than $500,000.
The blaze is thought to be the biggest in Porirua’s history. Six crews from around the region attended, with 60 of the 80 firefighters volunteers, and four helicopters with monsoon buckets were used.
Titahi Bay resident Sarah Campbell recalled her two eldest children, 4 and 5, thought the smoke, sirens, helicopter and fire engines was a “great adventure”, but her two youngest, 22 months and 2 weeks, were terrified by the noise and drama.
“Despite a rough evening for our family, we were not in imminent danger and were able to offer friends meals and coffee when they were evacuated from their homes,” she said.
“I saw the fire as it was starting and had no idea then that it would become as huge as it did.”
Fellow resident Donna Ford-Tuveve remembered the crackling of the fire and feeling the heat over her boundary fence.
“The prevailing wind and the awesome work of the fire crews were the saviours,” she said.
“One of our sons was a newborn. I was getting them ready to go to their nana’s in the east, because I was concerned how close the fire was. The burnt smell lingered for ages.”
Porirua firefighter Kevin Hintz worked on the fire the following day and said it was tough work.
“We were in gullies and had to use chainsaws to cut a track in. The conditions were dry and the flames were travelling quickly.”
Postlewaight said it was the most spectacular fire in Porirua’s history. Two dry summers and warm winds created the perfect recipe for fire, he said.
“It showed off the basic tenets of teamwork [among fire crews and senior command] and was a plain, old-fashioned slog. It did get rid of a lot of gorse, however.”
There was smoke damage to houses, but no-one was injured.
Members of the Red Cross, Wellington Free Ambulance and fire services were later publicly thanked in a ceremony at the golf club.
The Whitireia Park Restoration Group was established to set up replanting projects and weed control.
A 14-year-old was charged with deliberately starting a fire and went through the courts.
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