house fire in Christchurch on Thursday night<\/a> was a three-year-old girl.<\/p>\nHer 23-year-old mother, who was taken to hospital, died of her injuries on Friday evening.<\/p>\n
Detective Senior Sergeant Jo Carolan said four other children, siblings aged between 10 weeks and five-years-old, were admitted to hospital but three have since been discharged into the care of family.<\/p>\n
A two-year-old girl remains in hospital is in a stable condition and has moderate injuries.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/4JOLHTR_Image_7_jfif.jpeg\")
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Photo: RNZ \/ Louis Dunham\n<\/p>\n
Emergency services were first called at 8.25pm on Thursday with cordons in place on Whitehall Street and Hills Road.<\/p>\n
“This is a heartbreaking tragedy for the wh\u0101nau, and police extend our deepest sympathies as they navigate this devastating time,” Carolan said.<\/p>\n
The fire is not being treated as suspicious.<\/p>\n
![\"Fire](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/4JOLN8O_Image_3_jfif.jpeg\")
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Photo: RNZ \/ Louis Dunham\n<\/p>\n
Neighbours have described the chaos as they rushed to help the family.<\/p>\n
One neighbour said a man from the house banged on his door, asking for help.<\/p>\n
He and his wife then gathered three of the children from the berm – a baby and two young children – and kept them at their house until ambulance staff arrived.<\/p>\n
Other neighbours described big flames leaping from the house at the height of the blaze and said the quiet street resembled a “war scene” as people hurried to help the family involved.<\/p>\n
They said they were shocked and heartbroken by the child’s death.<\/p>\n
Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero<\/a>, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo: RNZ \/ Louis Dunham The child who died in a house fire in Christchurch on Thursday night…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":428685,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[48,47,42,43,49,46,44,45,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-428856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-audio","tag-current-affairs","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-podcasts","tag-public-radio","tag-radio-new-zealand","tag-rnz","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428856","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=428856"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428856\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/428685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=428856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=428856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=428856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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