Fire fighters say a Papamoa house was 'ransacked” before fire ripped through it at 9am on Sunday.
The blaze stated in the garage, which is attached to the Barbara Grove house, off Hartford Avenue in Papamoa.
It took fire fighters about one and a half hours to completely extinguish the fire.
The garage was completely destroyed but the main house only sustained moderate damage.
Pictures supplied to SunLive show fire ripping through the garage at the back of the house on Barbara Grove.
Papamoa fire chief Allan Bicker says when they assessed the inside of the house it looked as though it had been 'ransacked”.
'There was stuff pulled out of the cupboards and mattresses on the floor.”
'A neighbour we were talking to said that as far as she was aware the lady who lives in the house was a very tidy person and she wouldn't leave her house like that.”
Allan says the owner of the house is away on holiday but has been notified about the incident.
Police are treating the fire as suspicious and were at the scene interviewing neighbours shortly after it was put out.
'I don't know how long the owner has been away for but it could have been that someone was even squatting in there,” says Allan.
Although early indications suggest the fire started in the garage, fire fighters are not speculating on its source at this stage.
Another supplied photograph from a different witness shows the property after the fire was extinguished.
A witness who photographed the fire for SunLive described it as 'fierce and intense.”
The woman, who did not wish to be identified, was walking her dogs through a nearby reserve when she saw the fire and immediately phoned the SunLive news tip off line on 0800 SUN LIVE.
'We had just walked into the reserve and I looked over and thought ‘that's a funny looking storm cloud' and then we walked along a little bit further and I just went ‘oh my gosh.'
'There was some very, very thick smoke. When you looked at the bottom of the garage it looked like a pile of rubbish had been stacked up,” the witness says.
4 comments
The The woman phoned who??!!
Posted on 26-12-2010 16:39 | By Matt
"The woman, who did not wish to be identified, was walking her dogs through a nearby reserve when she saw the fire and immediately phoned the SunLive news tip off line on 0800 SUN LIVE." Wow. Most sane people would call 111.
right on, Matt!
Posted on 26-12-2010 21:39 | By morepork
It is to be hoped that, while phoning Sun Live is good, people keep their priorities clear. Perhaps it could be standard procedure at Sun Live to check when stories involving danger to life and propety are breaking, that the appropriate authorities have been notified? Imagine how awful it would be if someone died because all the excitement over the News story caused the basic emergency call to be forgotten...
Hey matt
Posted on 27-12-2010 10:20 | By dogsbody
Stupid comment, bro. The brigade was already there. Why would she call it again? Getting sun live on the job was a smart call. Their reporters do a great job of keeping us all informed, for free, the least we can do is tip them to the big stories.
Cheers Dogsbody, but...
Posted on 27-12-2010 13:13 | By Matt
The reporters did not inform that the fire service was there. Woof!!
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