ITM building supplies store in Tākaka destroyed by fire

Thursday, 11 January 2024

An ITM building supplies store in Tākaka, in Golden Bay, was destroyed by fire in the early hours of Thursday morning.

Fire and Emergency New Zealand’s Nelson-Marlborough district commander, Grant Haywood, said the fire spread into the neighbouring PGG Wrightson farm supplies store, but fire crews managed to cut that off.

“Under trying circumstances, they did an amazing job to stop the fire spreading further into an adjoining business, and also into the main street.”

The main building, measuring about 100 metres by 40m, at the ITM site was completely destroyed.

“Basically the fire has pulled all the firefighting resources from Golden Bay, with support from both Nelson and Tasman,” Haywood said.

“At the peak there was probably close to 40 firefighters on it.”

Units sent to the scene included a command unit and an aerial ladder appliance from Nelson.

Crews would be monitoring the site on Thursday, and a fire investigator would be on the scene.

The cause of the fire was not known at this stage, Haywood said.

Store manager Luke Brown confirmed the building was gone, but he was not immediately able to comment further.

Fire and Emergency NZ said it was alerted to the blaze just after 3am on Thursday.

It sent 12 units, mostly trucks and tankers to the scene, a spokesperson said.

By the time crews arrived the blaze was “significant”. The fire was reported contained at 4.50am.

About 6.30am crews were in the mopping up phase and by 8.30am crews left at the scene were dampening down the area.

State Highway 60 near Buxton Lane was closed from 6am to 7.50am while crews worked at the scene.

The fire prompted the Tasman District Council to initially warn residents in the area about contamination of nearby waterways.

It initially asked all users of water from the Motupipi River in Tākaka, from a tributary near Waitapu Engineering on Motupipi St to the Rototai Estuary, to “immediately cease taking water for any purpose such as domestic supply, stock drinking or irrigation”.

The council said the fire may have led to the discharge of paint, petroleum-based products, copper-chrome arsenic from treated timber, melted plastic residue and fire-fighting chemicals into the waterways.

But in an update at 2pm, the council said inspections showed the contaminated run-off was confined to a drain off Motupipi Street from where it will be extracted. The council was now confident that no pollutants made it into the Motupipi stream nor the Rototai Estuary.

Harmless red dye had been placed into the stormwater system at the fire site to assess if there were any other points where potentially contaminated water may have discharged to.

There is no reticulated water supply in Tākaka and so residents and businesses use private bores for water. If people noticed the red dye in their water supply, they should contact the council as soon as possible.

Ash had also fallen in the area surrounding the fire scene and property owners who collect water from roofs were advised to divert pipes away from their collection tanks.

Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly said MDF board contained arsenic. Amended 2.15pm, January 11