Battery to blame
Murray Robertson
A GISBORNE couple are counting the cost of a remote-controlled toy after losing most of their household possessions in a fire in Elgin on Wednesday.
Rodney and Kelly-Ann Melville were at a funeral service when their Muir Street house caught fire and much of what they owned was destroyed or badly damaged.
The fire, at around noon, is believed to have been started by a lithium battery that overheated in a remote-controlled helicopter on the couch in their lounge.
“It looks at this stage like the battery either overheated or malfunctioned in some way,” Fire Service investigator Jon Rewi said.
“Lithium batteries can spontaneously combust when they overheat.”
Mr Rewi said they were trying to identify the type of lithium battery in the helicopter to be “absolutely sure” of the cause.
The Melvilles received numerous cellphone calls and texts while at the funeral.
“We couldn’t answer them because the service was going and when it ended we thought someone was winding us up when we read the first message that said ‘your house is on fire’,” Mr Melville said.
They rushed home when other messages confirmed it.
“When we got there the firemen had the flames out and were just starting to mop up.”
Fire investigator Rewi said the fire “clearly spread from where the helicopter had been left to the wall behind it, and then to the rest of the lounge area and house”.
The home was extensively smoke and heat-damaged but firefighters got there in time to stop it causing much structural damage.
The door was shut to one bedroom in the house and it sustained almost no damage at all.
“If you looked at the house from the outside you would think we just had dark tinted windows, but inside just about everything is blackened or melted, except in our spare bedroom,” Mr Melville said.
“You couldn’t believe that something so small (the lithium battery) could cause so much damage so quickly,” he said.
The couple are expecting their first child in five months after seven years of in vitro fertilisation treatment, and Mrs Melville said they did not need this sort of stress.
“I started hyperventilating and was quite worried about my baby, so I went to see my GP for a check-up.”
The couple had bought a range of new baby things and those were among household items damaged.
They were full of praise for the actions of the firefighters.
“Mate, they were just awesome,” said Mr Melville, himself a former New South Wales volunteer firefighter who now operates the Simply Squeezed Juice company in Gisborne.
“They did a really efficient job.” Another 10 minutes and our house would have gone in the fire. Their care and compassion for us has also been amazing.”
Mr Melville spent many years as a volunteer firefighter and was lucky to survive when his fire truck burst into flames during the severe bush fires in the Blue Mountains in l994.
“That incident happened 20 years ago to the day that we had our house fire, he said.
Loss adjustor Mike Creswell said the Melvilles had good quality house and contents insurance.
“We have organised some temporary accomodation for them, and for their animals. We hope to see a start to the repairs to their home within the next month.
The couple stayed with neighbours on Wednesday night, so they could look after their dog Jasmine and their cats Candy, Spud and, would you believe it . . . Smokey.
