A mobility scooter caught fire, sparking a huge blaze as flames spread to a Te K\u016biti supermarket. <\/p>\n
Firefighters were called to the Te K\u016biti \u014ctorohanga New World at around 8.20am. <\/p>\n
In a statement, a Foodstuffs spokesperson told 1News emergency services were called to the entrance of the store around 8.15am.<\/p>\n
“Some smoke entered the store, activating the fire alarm system and there was some damage to the front of the store. As a precaution, the store was evacuated while emergency services responded.”<\/p>\n
The spokesperson said no one was injured in the blaze.<\/p>\n
“The store is currently closed while we assess the situation and ensure the site is safe to reopen. We will work to get the store operating again as quickly as possible and thank customers for their patience.”<\/p>\n
‘Pretty tragic’<\/p>\n
Eyewitness Kiri Nerai-Tuaupiki told 1News there was loud banging when the scooter caught fire, and it took “just seconds” for the flames to reach the supermarket’s main entrance.<\/p>\n
She said a dog that was inside the store did not make it out. <\/p>\n
Nerai-Tuaupiki said the store, the only major supermarket in the community, would remain closed for the day \u2013 an issue for locals.<\/p>\n
“That’s our main supermarket in our little town, so it’s pretty tragic,” she said.<\/p>\n
“We’ve been having a lot of house fires as well, so this is another tragedy for our town.”<\/p>\n
She said firefighters quickly extinguished the fire, but the building was noticeably damaged.<\/p>\n
Firefighters were carrying out an internal search of the supermarket.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A mobility scooter caught fire, sparking a huge blaze as flames spread to a Te K\u016biti supermarket. Firefighters…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":605057,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1081,9001,111,43,139,69],"class_list":["post-605056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-accident","tag-hamilton-waikato","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605056","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=605056"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605056\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/605057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=605056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=605056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=605056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}