{"id":439357,"date":"2026-05-22T02:54:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T02:54:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/439357\/"},"modified":"2026-05-22T02:54:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T02:54:09","slug":"fatal-onehunga-fire-resident-woke-to-screaming-and-banging-on-my-door-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/439357\/","title":{"rendered":"Fatal Onehunga fire: Resident woke to &#8216;screaming and banging on my door&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One person has died in a house fire that sent smoke billowing over Auckland&#8217;s Onehunga this morning.<\/p>\n<p>Several other people managed to escape the blaze, with emergency crews from across Auckland responding to the fire on Trafalgar St at around 7.20am on Friday.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We have 12 appliances in attendance and are still working to contain and extinguish the fire,&#8221; a spokesperson said.<\/p>\n<p>Crews from Onehunga, Ellerslie, Mount Roskill, Balmoral, Auckland City, Otara, Remuera, Mangere, Avondale, Parnell, Otahuhu, and Papatoetoe stations were on scene.<\/p>\n<p>Fire and Emergency NZ acting assistant commander Kenton Rusbridge confirmed that one person was found dead in the building.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve confirmed that there is one fatality that\u2019s been located inside the building,\u201d Rusbridge said.<\/p>\n<p>He added that hoarding had contributed to the extremity of the blaze.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The building was heavily fuel-loaded as a result of some hoarding, resulting in the extreme fire conditions found by the fire crews,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I\u2019d like to take this chance to remind everybody how critical it is to have tested working smoke alarms and to have a safe escape plan so you can get out of a fire when required.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"text-greyDarkFaded\">The house fire broke out in Auckland&#8217;s Onehunga on Friday.  (Source: Supplied)<\/p>\n<p>Trafalgar St was closed between Pleasant St and Forbes St, while Symonds St was closed to Aumoana Ln.<\/p>\n<p>Police said cordons were expected to remain in place for most of the day.<\/p>\n<p>Do you know more? Contact news@tvnz.co.nz<\/p>\n<p>Footage captured by 1News show police, firefighters and ambulances on scene, with crews spraying water onto the smoking roof of the house.<\/p>\n<p>St John said it had three ambulances, an operations manager and two rapid response vehicles on the scene. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Our ambulance crews have assessed four people in a minor condition at the scene.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1779418449_344_orini-johnson-GVNIT6DTTJAGNEI3BHXLBKNDYI.jpg\" alt=\"Orini Johnson.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"ImageMetadata__MetadataParagraph-sc-hi5x8q-0 cWTYyG image-metadata\">Orini Johnson. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;I could smell it burning&#8217; &#8211; resident<\/p>\n<p>Orini Johnson, one of residents on the property who escaped, told 1News she woke to screams, smoke and flames this morning.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I woke up to just my [other residents] screaming and banging on my door to come and get me out of here, to let me out of the house and we had to get out of the house,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I could smell it burning. It was just paper and everything. It was engulfed.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>She said six adults were at the property including the landlord.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It\u2019s his family home \u2026 It\u2019s just really unbelievable.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Auckland Transport said route 67A and 67B buses travelling towards the city being diverted via Pah Rd, Mt Albert Rd and Manukau Rd.<\/p>\n<p>Services heading away from the city were detouring via Manukau Rd, Mt Albert Rd and Pah Rd before continuing along Queenstown Rd.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One person has died in a house fire that sent smoke billowing over Auckland&#8217;s Onehunga this morning. Several&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":439144,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[51,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-439357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-auckland","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439357","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=439357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439357\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/439144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=439357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=439357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=439357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}