{"id":336711,"date":"2026-03-19T02:49:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T02:49:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/336711\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T02:49:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T02:49:08","slug":"fire-in-central-auckland-near-z-petrol-station-sends-thick-black-smoke-over-ponsonby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/336711\/","title":{"rendered":"Fire in central Auckland near Z petrol station sends thick black smoke over Ponsonby"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"TheThe fire was at a building behind a gas station on Williamson Ave, Ponsonby. Photo \/ Anna Heath<\/p>\n

A witness\u2019 friend told the Herald their friend saw the blaze begin at the back left side of the mechanics\u2019 garage.<\/p>\n

\u201cLooked like a high-performance car lifted at the back, and it was on fire, dripping liquid,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He said the workers tried to put the fire out, but it \u201ctook off very quickly\u201d and got out of control, taking over the back wall within minutes.<\/p>\n

The witness\u2019 friend said an apartment building nearby was getting a lot of heat and smoke coming off the blaze.<\/p>\n

A Fire and Emergency spokesperson told the Herald that crews arrived from Balmoral within six minutes to the \u201cwell-involved\u201d fire in the 400sq m commercial building.<\/p>\n

They said the blaze was contained as of 2.25pm after an \u201cinterior fire attack\u201d was performed.<\/p>\n

A specialist foam appliance was called because of concern about the petrol station nearby.<\/p>\n

\"ThereThere were no reports of injuries or anyone trapped inside the building. Photo \/ Anna Heath\"FirefightersFirefighters spray water on to the site from an aerial truck. Photo\/ Anna Heath\"FireFire and Emergency says one specialist foam truck, one specialist house layer, a specialist command unit and a fire investigator are on scene. Photo \/ Anna Heath<\/p>\n

The spokesperson confirmed nearby buildings were evacuated.<\/p>\n

Eight fire trucks, one heavy aerial truck and two standard aerial trucks are in attendance.<\/p>\n

The spokesperson said one specialist foam truck, one specialist house layer, a specialist command unit, and a fire investigator are on scene.<\/p>\n

There were no reports of injuries or anyone trapped inside the building.<\/p>\n

Anytime Fitness Ponsonby manager Badal Makwana told the Herald big plumes of black smoke were making the view from the gym window hazy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t really see much. The smoke looks pretty bad.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"PolicePolice are helping with traffic management. Photo \/ Anna Heath\"WilliamsonWilliamson Ave is blocked between Pollen and MacKelvie Sts because of the fire. Photo \/ Anna Heath<\/p>\n

The gym is on Pollen St, right across from the scene of the blaze.<\/p>\n

Makwana said there had been no official communication on whether people needed to stay indoors or not, but that everyone at the gym was safe.<\/p>\n

A witness said animals had to be evacuated from the nearby Auckland Pet Hospital, with staff carrying them out to the street in their arms and in crates.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe cats were crying \u2026 they had the crates covered with their jackets.\u201d<\/p>\n

More to come. <\/p>\n

Sign up to The Daily H<\/a>, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The fire was at a building behind a gas station on Williamson Ave, Ponsonby. Photo \/ Anna Heath…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":336712,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[74,51,8843,7022,4996,46300,9525,1853,2079,305,75549,8482,78,3180,111,43,139,69,1523,22126,26890,35968,3948,11555,13655,1361,29451],"class_list":["post-336711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-after","tag-auckland","tag-believed","tag-black","tag-blaze","tag-broke","tag-caught","tag-central","tag-fire","tag-have","tag-highperformance","tag-huge","tag-in","tag-near","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-over","tag-petrol","tag-ponsonby","tag-sends","tag-smoke","tag-started","tag-station","tag-that","tag-thick"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=336711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336711\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/336712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=336711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=336711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=336711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}