Arson suspect in custody

Police link three suspicious fires

BY ALASTAIR STEWART

An alleged 'firebug' police have accused of the burning of two Otaki homes is in custody.

A second holiday home was burnt in as many weeks on Saturday, following a small garage fire at the start of last month, all on Marine Pde, Otaki Beach.

Police have linked the three fires and charged a 21-year-old Otaki Beach resident. He was remanded in custody and will reappear in Levin District Court on Wednesday.

Firefighters were called out to a two-bedroom Marine Pde bach at 2.20am on Saturday to find the holiday home well-alight, said firefighter Graeme Rankin.

"It was pretty much a salvage job when we got there unfortunately. The back part of the house was very extensively damaged and portions of the floor had disappeared."

The home was a few doors down from another two-bedroom bach that was completely gutted just over a week earlier. Both houses were unoccupied at the time.

On February 4 garbage was set alight in a Marine Pde shed, causing minor damage.

Levin Police's Criminal Investigation Branch is still seeking information from the public and plans to go door-to-door in the area over the next few days.

It took firefighters nearly three hours to put out the Saturday morning blaze, with a "double-skin" roof making the task more difficult, Mr Rankin said. "Nothing a bit more water didn't fix."

In an unrelated incident, Paraparaumu firefighters responded to an unusual and suspicious fire last week.

The owners of a Mamaku St house came home on Thursday night to find the interior of their house gutted.

The fire had been lit sometime in the previous 12 hours but after burning much of the inside ran out of oxygen and extinguished itself.

Station officer Jason Brinck said it was a "bizarre situation" for a fire to destroy 80 per cent of the interior, but not escape outside. One window had cracked and "had that broken the whole thing would have gone up", he said.

The windows were charred and burnt, and a neighbouring flat had smelt smoke but not reported it, he said.

Paraparaumu firefighters also responded to a Saturday afternoon fire in which the sun apparently set alight an oily rag, destroying a deck and spa pool at a Tiromoana Rd, Raumati South, home.

- Kapiti Observer