Inferno destroys factory: Gloriavale Commercial Premises

| Greymouth Star | Brendon McMahon |

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A large fire which swept through a boilerhouse at the Gloriavale Christian Community at Lake Haupiri on Friday night has rendered the community’s commercial meal plant out of action for months at least.

A community spokesman said today the blaze — about 500m away from the living quarters and community buildings — erupted in the rendering plant boilerhouse shortly before 9pm, extensively damaging the boilers and electrics supporting the meal plant operation.

“It will be out for several months,” Peter Righteous said.

One of the two boilers and the electrical supply were destroyed. A team of around four trained firefighters living at Gloriavale did their best to fight the fire before the nearest fire brigades arrived from Moana and Ngahere, Mr Righteous said.

Moana Volunteer Fire Brigade chief fire officer Dave Larkin said the response was quickly escalated to a second stage alarm, dispatching the Greymouth and Brunner brigades to what was a “big one”.

The 20 square metre boilerhouse was fully involved in flames and had already been evacuated when they arrived.

Over two-and-a-half hours, numerous fire crews, supported by the Greymouth-based Fire and Emergency Command Unit, worked to quell the blaze.

Mr Larkin said the Gloriavale crew had successfully prevented the fire from spreading before the local brigades arrived.

“It wasn’t going to cause any problems but there were other buildings around.

“From my understanding, I think they know how it started … it’s an unfortunate incident,” Mr Larkin said.

Scene commander, Greymouth Fire Brigade deputy fire chief Colin Thomas said the fire was reasonably large, with a lot of material in the building fuelling it.

“By the time we got there, the fire had been knocked down.

“It’s done some damage to their plant, which will take time to rectify. Because of the nature of the fire and the amount of stuff in the building, it took time.”

One firefighter suffering heat exhaustion was taken to hospital in the course of the response as a precautionary measure.

Mr Thomas said a “potential issue” causing the fire had been tentatively identified but there was nothing suspicious about it. The meal plant is one of several businesses operated by Gloriavale as part of their Lake Haupiri community.

It renders beef and sheep offal plus animal skins into a commercial meal product.

Mr Righteous said the plant employed about a dozen people including engineers in the community.

A timeline around resuming operations would emerge soon, he said.

“The company directors are having a meeting today about it to assess the damage.”