An Arataki woman is being treated for burns to her face and singed hair after a gas explosion blew the windows out of her Arataki home and drove a pot into the roof.

Mount Maunganui Fire Brigade was called to the house in Jasmine Place following reports of an oven fire about 10.30am.

The pot stuck in the roof following the explosion, which also destroyed the ceramic stove top.

But when firefighters arrived at the property, the scene that greeted them painted a completely different picture.

Mount Maunganui Fire Brigade station officer Lindsay Nichol says when they walked in and couldn't believe the state of the house, there had obliviously been quite a large internal explosion.

A woman had been using a butane camp gas stove to boil some water following a power cut in the area.

Lindsay says the woman was 3m away from the cooker, which was on a ceramic stove top, when the explosion happened.

Tauranga fire safety risk management officer Bill Rackham says the canister had been left on the stove stop when the power has come back on.

'The element appears to have been accidentally left on which has caused the canister to heat up.” Bill says this has caused an expansion explosion, followed by a secondary gas explosion.

'The canister hasn't failed, it's been human error.”

'She said she was dying for a cup of coffee, which is quite ironic because she nearly did," says Lindsay.

The force of the explosion drove the pot into the ceiling and the cooker down through the stove top.

'It looks like a standard three bedroom house and I suspect there is structural damage to a fair bit of the house. Certainly the kitchen, lounge and dining areas windows and frames have been blown out.

'You wouldn't have wanted to be on the outside looking in because you would have worn a facefull of glass. The glass is scattered everywhere as a result of the explosion. The aluminium of the window framing is bulging out of the house.”

Lindsay is hoping to find the cause of the explosion with the help of a fire safety officer, who is currently at the scene of the explosion.

'Military use propane gas and LPG as bombs, potentially it's a very explosive gas.

It has to be used with due respect. It doesn't take much, if you walk into a room a smell gas, don't turn the lights on, don't turn them off, don't do anything.

'Just a little spark in the switch can set off an explosion. Leave the room immediately and don't turn anything electrical off or on.”





The remains of the exploded gas canister.