Flaming heck, you can help!

WHEN Caroline Davidson spotted this Waipapa Road house on fire she had no hesitation in stopping to see how she could help. Photos supplied.

By Grant Johnston

If you drove past a burning house would you stop to see if you could offer assistance.

According to the woman who called firefighters to a blazing Arohena house on Tuesday after she saw it when driving past, plenty of motorists just went driving blithely on by.

Fire crews from Te Awamutu, Putaruru and Mangakino attended and subdued the blaze, but not before the Waipapa Road house had been levelled. The callout was made at 11.12am and the first firefighters arrived within half an hour - with very little left of the house at that stage.

“What amazed me, is the total lack of interest or care from most passing motorists,” says Caroline Davidson, who made the call to emergency services. “They were not to know whether there were people there or not. Before I arrived on the scene, one driver had noticed the fire and continued up the road to get cellphone coverage to make a call. He came back and saw me making my call to 111 and continued on his way. Another driver did stop and waited with me for a while at the gateway. What was really sobering was the speed of the fire.”

The house was the old farm house on Jeff and Kerry Bryant’s drystock farm. It was in the process of being renovated as a rental. It had been re-piled and the meter box moved. Fire inspectors are yet to determine the cause of the fire.

“We were really grateful to the people who tried to ring 111, as neither Jeff nor I were home at the time,” Mrs Bryant says. “We are especially grateful to Caroline Davidson, who after she made the 111 call came up the drive to make sure there was nobody in the house and to a man who, when he could not get cellphone coverage, went up to the neighbours’ place to alert them. In our case their actions couldn’t save the property, but in other cases their actions could make all the difference and in some cases could mean the difference between life and death. We really appreciate that these people tried.”