Suspicious blazes strike Invercargill

Between midnight and 7pm firefighters received 11 call-outs to six structure fires, including the four being investigated, one callback to the scene of an earlier fire, one car crash and three false alarms.

The question of whether a firebug was responsible for the suspicious blazes was something police and Fire Safety investigators would not be drawn on last night.

Detective Fred Shandley, of Invercargill CIB, said joint investigations were continuing on whether the fires were connected.

Firefighters were called to the first fire in a hayshed on Severn St about midnight.

The shed was destroyed by the blaze, Mr Shandley said.

The second fire about 3.30am destroyed a storage shed on Bluff Rd.

A home in Bain St was the third property hit after wood against an exterior wall was set alight.

In the fourth blaze, which broke out between 6am and 9am, an uninsured business premises in the South City Mall on Elles Rd was damaged after a refrigeration unit on the roof of the building was set alight, he said.

It was unclear whether the fourth fire was linked to the first three, Mr Shandley said.

"If you look at the time and location there is more similarity between the (first three) fires."

Gary Rodgers, the owner of the Bluff Rd shed, was yesterday counting the cost of the blaze.

He had owned the 18m by 6m shed to store arcade games from his business Coin Operated Ltd, as well as an excavator, a tractor he had just finished restoring and other items, he said.

"It's more than $100,000 worth of gear without the cost of the shed."

His tenant, who rented half the shed from him and lost a $90,000 street sweeper and personal effects, alerted him to the fire about 5.30am, Mr Rogers said.

"My son passed me the phone and he said `I've got some bad news for you.' I said `the bastards have broken into Bluff Rd haven't they?'," Mr Rogers said.

"He said `it's worse than that it's gone'."

While insurance had yet to assess the extent of losses, he was remaining positive, he said. "It's not a life it hasn't got a pulse."

In Bain St, Glenys Williamson, her 26-year-old son Manawa and three grandchildren Joshua Kerr, 16, Marcus Kerr, 14, and Tyler Kerr, 9, were all woken by a neighbour thumping on the door at 6.49am.

"The neighbour said `you've got a fire'. I said `what?"'

Her son and eldest grandson rushed outside with buckets of water to douse the flames while she called 111, she said.

The fire, which scorched the eave of the house but caused little damage, had rattled her and her family, Ms Williamson said.

"It's scary I've got to get young Tyler to bed tonight and say it's going to be all right."

At Impuls-d, a South City Mall bag retailer, owner Warren Skill said he was aware youths sometimes hung out on the roof. and believed they were responsible for the blaze.

He was uninsured.

Invercargill Fire Service chief fire officer Brendan Nally said the volume of call-outs had taxed firefighting resources.

Rostered fire crews, one at the Kingswell station in south Invercargill and two at the fire service's central city headquarters, had to be supplemented by volunteers and off-duty firefighters to deal with the blazes particularly those that happened yesterday morning, which tied up firefighters for hours, he said.

"We activated Invercargill volunteers we've got 17 (people) available and had to call in staff who were off duty."

Many of the additional staff mobilised to fight the fires were rostered to begin work at 8am and were beginning to feel jaded by yesterday afternoon, Mr Nally said.

"We are having to manage a fair bit of fatigue."

SUSPICIOUS FIRES
Midnight: Firefighters are called to a hayshed in Severn St, an excavator is used to bury burning hay and fire crews maintain vigil at the scene until 6am.
3.25am: Fire crews called to a large shed on Bluff Rd opposite the intersection with Hyde St to find it well ablaze. Tight security on fences and the structure itself hamper efforts to douse the blaze. An explosion and the sound of gas cylinders venting in the heat mean firefighters build an improvised dam around intact cylinders to hold water and keep them cool. They remain on the scene until 8am.
6.53am: Firefighters douse the remnants of a deliberately lit fire against the exterior wall of a house.
10am: A fire in the housing for a refrigeration unit on the roof of a Elles Rd business goes up in smoke. Firefighters are forced to dismantle the housing and break into the roof cavity to reach the seat of the blaze.

- © Fairfax NZ News