>I watched a house burn down today.

It was fucking frightening.

Called in to see Steve Fullmer in Tasman just before lunch and watched him turn quite a promising jug into an ashtray, before we headed upstairs for a cup of tea.

At 12:16, Robin, Steve’s wife, looked out of the kitchen window and said “There’s smoke coming out of next door’s roof”.

“Next door” is the Tasman General Store. Built in the early 20th century, it’s mostly held together by a thick layer of paint, applied by a long line of owners.

You can buy groceries, organic veges, newspapers, local wines and ice-creams, collect mail and catch up on the local gossip. There’s a petrol bowser and they do fish and chips on Friday nights.

“Next door” is a driveway plus about a meter to the northeast of Steve and Robin’s house and gallery.

There was northeasterly blowing.

Steve grabbed fire extinguisher and headed down the stairs and into the store. Peeing on the flames would have had more effect than the fire extinguisher did.

At 12:18, I called 111, we got everyone out of the buildings and tried to get some water from Steve’s garden hose onto the building.

Useless. They’re not on mains and the pressure’s crap.

So we stood and watched the place burn down.

At 12:30, the volunteer fire brigades from Mapua, Upper Moutere and Motueka started arriving and they’d almost run out out of tank water and foam, with the flames lashing out over towards Steve’s house, by the time they got a hose into the neighbour’s dam and the fire under control.

By 2:30 most of the walls were down and they were dampening down the hotspots. The heat had cracked windows in Steve’s house.

Matt, the Incident Officer from the Mapua Volunteer Fire Brigade who’s an apiarist in real life and our new neighbour said “It was bloody, bloody close”

The people who ran the store lost everything. They’d just moved in. They’d just finishing renovating.

Including a new coat of exterior paint.