Fire Brigade was ‘amazing’

Continued from page 1 pital, and then discharged that night.

The fire began while the partner of Liane-Ann’s daughter was working on a car parked just a metre away from the house.

He was under the car, drilling into one of the panels. Unknown to him, the car had been modified and he drilled into the petrol line. A stray spark then ignited the fuel and the car was quickly engulfed in flames.

That happened so rapidly that her daughter’s partner dislocated his shoulder trying to get out from under the car and a friend had to pull him out.

After extinguishing the car, which was written off in the blaze, firefighters went through the house because it was filled with smoke.

“They went through the whole house and opened every single door and every single window,” Liane-Anne says.

They also checked with instruments to see that the house was safe to enter.

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The Fire Brigade was called to the blaze at around 8:40pm, and in the meantime some of the eight or so neighbours who came to help had brought fire extinguishers.

Initially it looked like they may have got the fire under control, but it flared again, threatening the house.

“We had just had brand new carpet throughout the house. They were just so tidy inside the house you wouldn’t have noticed they had been there. There was not one footprint on the new carpet.

“That was just amazing.

“The Fire Brigade were just so supportive and so awesome. They went above and beyond. They were just so wonderful.”

The neighbours who came to help were also amazing, LianeAnne says.

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The brigade arrived on the scene quickly, however, and rapidly extinguished the blaze, but not before it had done about $200 worth of damage to the paintwork on the house.

As well as putting out the fire, the brigade also called an ambulance, both for Liane-Ann’s daughter’s partner and for her son, who had cracked a rib while trying to help.

“So we had an ambulance here within minutes as well.”

They were both taken to hos-

“We even had one of the neighbours bring us sausage rolls the next day and come to check that we were all right.”

Liane-Ann and her family had just returned to Wainuiomata to live around two weeks before the fire. They had moved from Wainuiomata to Stokes Valley, but decided to return mainly because of the community is so supportive.

“It is so lovely being back.

“To raise kids Wainuiomata is definitely the place to be. It is so different to other places in New Zealand.

“I always knew that Wainuiomata was filled with such love and support for each other, but to have that after only being back for two weeks, I can’t even express what it meant to us.”

To the Wainuiomata Volunteer Fire Brigade, Wellington Free Ambulance and the neighbours who came to assist, “thank you all so very much from the bottom of our hearts,” Liane-Ann says.