Sixty firefighters battle Hamilton blaze

DONNA WALSH/Waikato Times

DAMPENING DOWN: Firefighters in a cherry-picker use a water hose to put out the fire at the boat building business.

DONNA WALSH/Waikato Times

HOSING IT DOWN: Firemen use a water hose to put out the fire in the engulfed boat building business.

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The Fire Service this afternoon extinguished a major fire in a boat building plant in Te Rapa, Hamilton.

Thick dark smoke billowed hundreds of metres into the air from Tristram Marine, in Udy Pl, off the Boulevard, north of the Harvey Norman store shortly after 3pm, with 12 appliances and about 60 firefighters from around the Waikato taking 90 minutes to bring it under control.

The 95m x 75m building contained a fibreglassing unit with its resins and liquid chemicals contributing to a pungent vapour, which blew east across adjacent State Highway 1, causing a traffic backlog and encouraging hundreds of rubber-neckers to watch the drama unfold.

Nobody was injured in the fire, which was believed to be the biggest in the Waikato since the Icepak disaster, but damage was extensive, with the roof collapsing and exterior walls left crumpled in a high density industrial area.

While many partially constructed boats were destroyed, Waikato District Fire Commander Roy Breeze estimated $6-8 million of merchandise in the front section of the building was saved, with fire walls meaning firemen were largely able to contain the blaze using aerial appliances.

"It will take time to work out how it started,'' Mr Breeze said. 

"It is now a matter of establishing what hazardous substances were in the building and the possible impact of any run-off.''

- © Fairfax NZ News