Fire fighters from Mount Maunganui, Tauranga and Papamoa fought a blaze at a commercial building at the far end of Truman Lane last night.

The building, being used as administration premises for Mangatawa and Papamoa Blocks, was well alight when fire fighters began arriving after the alarm was raised at 11.13pm.

The fire-damaged Truman Lane building today.

'I think the guys did pretty well and stopped it pretty quickly,” says Mount station officer Roger Pickett.

'It had been going for a wee while before we got there. As soon as we got within sight of it, it was showing up pretty well.

'Virtually from the (Te Maunga) roundabout you could see it pretty well. We certainly knew where we were going.”

The room the fire occurred in was a files room, but looks as though it started out on or under the deck.

'It looks like they go out and smoke on that deck and there is usually a sand box where they put their butts,” adds Roger, 'but we couldn't find the box, so whether it was there or whether it wasn't there I really have no idea.”

There could also have been vegetative litter under the deck, he says.

'It started outside but ended up inside the building,” explains Roger.

'It's taken out a ranchslider and got into a files room where they have been doing paper shredding, so there was plenty of fuel loading in there to get it going pretty well.

'The guys did pretty well really. It was probably lucky there wasn't a howling northerly to push it through the rest of the building. It was actually a pretty good save.”

Fire Safety officer John Rewi is examining the building today to determine the cause. Roger doesn't think it is a suspicious fire, and believes a cigarette butt caused it.

The building is around 30m long and 15m wide. Fire damage was confined to the front files room, a toilet and a room off the toilet.

'While there was a bit of smoke damage to the rest of the building there was not a great deal of damage elsewhere,” says Roger.

'When you approach it from the back, it's hard to tell other than a bit of smoke damage coming through the weather boards and under the eves - it's pretty much intact. But around the other side there's a great deal of charring.”

However, fire fighters' efforts were hampered by the fire hydrants in the lane not being marked.

'There was nothing obvious once you got past the Tui seed place,” says Roger.

'I called up the new 12,000 tanker from Greerton, so we had that there to supply us with water until we eventually found the hydrant.

'I know where it is now, but it would have been handy to have had a yellow triangle and a blue cat's eye denoting where it was. It would have been a lot handier.”