A Tauranga rest home has been commended by Fire services for their quick response to an emergency earlier this morning.

A New Zealand Fire Service spokesperson says a crew was called to attend a gas leak at Mitchell Court rest home at around 11.30am.

'A gas main was hit by a chain digger, fire crews responded from Tauranga and Mount Maunganui.

'It was a small domestic gas line that was struck, the immediate area was evacuated while fire crews investigated.

'Crews provided protection with breathing apparatus and monitored the situation until gas was isolated.”

Mitchell Court facility manager Ian Geddes-Cook says the evacuation effort by staff was fantastic.

'We had to evacuate our residents and we were commended by the fire crew who attended about how well we had done at evacuating residents before they got to the scene,” says Ian.

Thirty five residents currently live in the rest home. Ian says today's event was the first real evacuation they have been involved in.

'We'd just done a fire evacuation a week ago, so all our residents were drilled into evacuations.

'We had a contingent of around eight to nine staff who helped to evacuate residents and they were impeccable during it, they all knew it was the real thing this time and they just had to get on with it.

'Because we're trained doing evacuations, it went excellent and everyone really gelled,” he says. 'People who normally wouldn't do certain duties all pulled together as a team and even our most compromised residents who were in wheelchairs and the likes all got out on time.”

The evacuation lasted around two hours this morning with residents cleared from the premise within five minutes. Ian says only one injury occurred.

'We had one injury, there was a gentleman who fell and damaged his arm, and he's off to have his second x-ray later this afternoon.”