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A Marlborough Sounds family home of five decades has disappeared after going up in smoke.
Volunteer fire crews had an early morning wake-up call on Friday morning when they were called to the house fire in Linkwater, in an area known as the “The Grove”, shortly before 2am.
Peter Standish’s brother had lived there since their parents, who retired there, passed away. Standish said a fault in an electric blanket started the fire, destroying the house that had belonged to their family since the mid-1970’s.
“For us, there are a lot of family memories there which have gone up in flames,” he said.
Anthony Phelps/Stuff
Little is left of a home that has belonged to a Marlborough family since the mid-1970s.
“But apart from the sentiments and the memories, which are significant, we were obviously concerned about the welfare of my brother. We were just relieved that he got out without any serious injury.”
Standish said his brother unsuccessfully tried to put out the fire by throwing water on it, before he “managed to escape”. He was then taken to hospital and discharged later on Friday.
“He was in a state of shock, but also, he was suffering from smoke inhalation,” he said.
Units from Linkwater, Havelock and Picton stations responded to the fire about 1.55am, and found the house on Queen Charlotte Drive fully involved in flames when they arrived, a Fire and Emergency spokesperson said.
Marcel Rood/Supplied
Emergency services at the scene of the house fire in The Grove near Linkwater on Queen Charlotte Drive.
Tankers from Blenheim and Waihopai were called to assist, and the fire was nearly completely extinguished by 3.30am. Hot spots were dampened down, and some of the roofing iron of the house was removed to allow crews to get into the deep-seated areas of fire, the spokesperson said.
“They were on scene for quite some time. We still had crews on scene until about 7am this morning, just making sure that everything was fully extinguished and there was no more hotspots. So we had multiple crews responding in and out throughout the night.”
A fire investigator had been notified.
Linda Herd lived a few doors down, and was woken up early on Friday by her husband yelling “get up, get outside, get out the house”.
Anthony Phelps/Stuff
Peter Standish, brother of the man that lived at the house, says there are “a lot of family memories there which have gone up in flames”.
They initially thought their home of 26 years would also fall victim to the blaze, and Herd said they were “damn lucky” the fire didn’t spread.
“It happened pretty quick. We couldn’t believe how high the flames were,” she said.
“We just thought it was going to take over… I thought ‘Oh god, here we go’.”
She said a group of neighbours loaded a water pump onto a ute, intending to extinguish the flames themselves, before the first fire crew arrived.
Anthony Phelps/Stuff
Some of the roofing iron of the house was removed to allow crews to get into the deep-seated areas of fire, a Fire and Emergency spokesperson said.
“We’re so lucky to have the Linkwater fire brigade, that’s for sure. Otherwise, if we didn’t have that, I’d say (the fire) would’ve gone right up the hill.”
The Fire and Emergency spokesperson said they were called back to the same address shortly after 9am on Friday after a report of smoke still coming from the property, and crews from Linkwater and Renwick responded to make sure the situation was under control.
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