Fijians come to rescue of family
Auckland: Fearing people could be trapped inside a burning house two Fijian men didn’t hesitate to rush inside.
Fire and Emergency New Zealand was alerted to the blaze at a King St, Waitara, address on Thursday when a heater ignited a bed after it was left too close. Neighbour Saimone Sauliga, 35, was woken up and alerted to the drama when his nephew Jack Costello, 25, returned home to discover his neighbour crying on the street.
“He was calling out to me that there was a fire inside and that they needed help,” said Mr Sauliga, a diesel mechanic.
“We thought that the kids were inside and we were trying to help the family.”
He could see flames coming from inside the house, which was clogged with smoke, and called out to his wife to start filling up 20-litre containers with water so they could extinguish the flames as he leapt the two-metre tall fence to his neighbour’s property. “Then I jumped inside to find where the fire was coming from, inside was thick with smoke we couldn’t see anything,” said Mr Sauliga.
“We tried to breathe, but you would have to come back out and then go back in again.”
Mr Sauliga said the men eventually found the room where the fire was burning and used the water containers to put it out before the fire brigade arrived.
The pair didn’t consider themselves heroes and Mr Sauliga said he was just pleased the occupants escaped safely from the house. “The main thing is just to help the neighbours to make sure that nobody gets injured or hurt,” he said.