\u201cAnd I was [screaming] like oh my God, our house is on fire!<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just all ran outside.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then everything just started catching on fire, like rapidly. Everything. And the windows were … smashing.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne second it was just the couch, next second it was the whole house. It was so scary.\u201d<\/p>\n
Veza said she tried to call the fire department, but her phone wasn\u2019t initially working, so they ran to the neighbours for help.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m so glad we got out as fast as we could,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m so glad I [could] grab my baby.\u201d<\/p>\n
Erutoe said she was in her room when she suddenly heard Veza call out for her to \u201ccome look at this\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought it was a spider or something.\u201d<\/p>\n
Erutoe said she quickly realised that an extension cord in the lounge had caught fire and jumped out of her bedroom window, while Veza, with her daughter and partner, left through the front door.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was just thinking \u2018What the f***, what the f***\u2019 and how to get myself to safety,\u201d Erutoe said.<\/p>\n
Future Veza with her daughter Kazeah and her niece Soraya Erutoe in front of their burning house. Photo \/ John Van de Ven<\/p>\n
While the family said they don\u2019t know what\u2019s next, they knew they had options and a lot of family support.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe might end up going to our grandad\u2019s house. Cause our house, by the looks of it, is definitely not going to be liveable,\u201d Veza said.<\/p>\n
She said the fire claimed everything, IDs, bank cards, food and the ashes of her beloved cat, which died last year.<\/p>\n
Both of them are trying to remain upbeat.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat else can I do? Be sad about it?\u201d Erutoe said.<\/p>\n
The family believe the house won’t be inhabitable for some time. Photo \/ John Van de Ven<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve already accepted that all of our s*** is gone, the whole house is gone.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is only a few things I can control and my mood is one of them.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe only thing you can do is be positive about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fire and Emergency New Zealand said it received multiple calls about a fire at a 10-by-12-metre dwelling at 10.51am.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe dwelling was fully involved in fire on arrival.\u201d<\/p>\n
Four firetrucks from Tokoroa and Put\u0101ruru, as well as a fire investigator, attended the scene.<\/p>\n
Danielle Zollickhofer is the Waikato news director and a multimedia journalist at the Waikato Herald. She joined NZME in 2021 and is based in Hamilton.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cAnd I was [screaming] like oh my God, our house is on fire! \u201cWe just all ran outside.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":414308,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[213013,74,95,6794,1558,14772,22857,19688,2109,2079,42,1345,10053,101,138334,43,13744,8229,17160,40,38,41,39,102,4741],"class_list":["post-414307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-10month","tag-after","tag-and","tag-baby","tag-been","tag-burning","tag-escape","tag-escaped","tag-family","tag-fire","tag-headlines","tag-home","tag-house","tag-left","tag-narrowly","tag-news","tag-shock","tag-they","tag-tokoroa","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-with","tag-young"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414307","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=414307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414307\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/414308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}