Council flat firewall alert investigation

The Dunedin City Council will investigate whether all its multi-unit flats have appropriate firewalls, after a fire in a block of council flats spread between units.

The Fire Service says the fire separation between the two units did not reach all the way to the roof, allowing the fire to travel through the roof cavity between them - a situation it has expressed immediate concern about to the council.

The Fire Service is nearing completion of its investigation into the fire in the block of council flats in Glen Rd on Monday.

A man in the unit where the fire started was treated for smoke inhalation after being helped from the building by his neighbours.

Fire safety officer Barry Gibson yesterday said the fire started in the kitchen, possibly from unattended cooking.

Although the investigation was not complete, it had already given rise to concerns about the firewalls and whether smoke alarms were operating correctly in the building.

The firewall situation appeared to be the same along the whole four-unit block, Mr Gibson said.

The block is one of several similar blocks located together on the Glen Rd site.

The building code requires fire separation measures within buildings to avoid fire and smoke from spreading to other household units within the same building.

However, incomplete fire separation between flats in multi-unit blocks was not uncommon in blocks built in the 1970s or 1980s and owners were not required to upgrade unless they wanted to, or needed to gain a consent for new work on the building, Mr Gibson said.

Building services manager Neil McLeod said the council's building services and city property teams were aware of the Fire Service's concerns and were waiting on its report before continuing their own investigation into the exact issues and their extent.

The flats were likely built in the 1970s and under the building system of the day would not have had the same exacting compliance inspections as required now, Mr McLeod said.

These days building projects were specifically checked for compliance with fire separation regulations.

There was no compulsion on owners to upgrade existing non-complying fire separations, unless they were seeking consents for making a change to the building, but owners could upgrade voluntarily.

He did not know how many multi-unit council flats the council owned, so it was too early to say how widespread the problem might be.

If it found fire separations were not safe, the council would get ''done what we need to be done'' to make them safe, he said.

Mr Gibson would meet council staff soon about the matter.

The council has nearly 1000 units in its community housing stock, but it is not clear how many are in multi-unit buildings.

debbie.porteous@odt.co.nz