The official investigation into the June fire at New World Victoria Park found the fire alarm system did not activate automatically and “may not have functioned as designed”.
The report is by a Fire and Emergency New Zealand specialist investigator Colin Paul Melville.
He redacted the fire cause but declared it was accidental.
“Information available at the time of investigation would suggest that the system may not have functioned as designed and had been isolated pre-incident,” his report said.
Instead of the alarm going off automatically, a manual fire activation was received on June 17.
Questions about problems with the alarm raised in the report were put to property owner Foodstuffs (North Island) and Savory Construction managing director Daniel Clark.
Neither would discuss the alarm issue.
Savory was renovating the store when the fire started.
One developer said fire alarms and fire panels get switched off for maintenance connections during building work. But insurance companies must be notified and it is only done by fire specialists.
“Tradies don’t go anywhere near those,” he said.
A boss at a high-rise construction specialist said fire alarms were sometimes deactivated during building refurbishment work. But that only happens in an isolated area.
“There is a process to go through with notification to insurers.”
Focus on first fuel ignited
The report said the first fuel ignited by the fire could not be identified with a degree of certainty, given the extent of fire damage within the area of origin.
“It is possible, however, given the rapid fire spread, that building paper, build-up of dust, paper particles or pipe lagging within the area of origin was the first fuel ignited,” Melville said.
Those elements would allow flames to travel along the surface or within wall cavities.
Drop-down of burning particles to the readily combustible paper products underneath would exacerbate and support rapid spread of the fire, he wrote.
The fire started in the mezzanine floor area where construction was taking place.
Internal alterations were underway, including installing travellators from the basement carpark, extending entries from Victoria and Scotland Sts, and modifying the basement layout.
These works created an environment with exposed building materials and cavities.
Extensive damage prevented pinpointing the exact ignition source, but possibilities such as electrical faults, smoking materials and equipment were examined and eliminated.
A scene examination showed the interior of the supermarket, including the bulk store, mezzanine floor, offices and the retail supermarket area, were extensively fire-damaged.
The fruit and vegetable department area had significantly more intact suspended roofing panels present.
The demarcation line of where the hot gas layer had descended to during the fire was visible about one-third of the way down the vertical wall surfaces.
Stock and shelving were relatively intact but smoke and water-damaged.
Fire damage and smoke staining patterns were consistent with late fire spread having occurred in this area.
The wine and beer department also had significantly more intact suspended roofing panels present, with the hot gas layer about one-third of the way down the vertical wall surface.
Cause of fire redacted
Some pages of the report were fully redacted.
Under the Official Information Act, the report withheld substantial amounts of information because it would be “likely unreasonably to prejudice the commercial position of the person who supplied or who is the subject of the information”.
A Foodstuffs (North Island) spokesman said it was dealing with many issues connected to the fire.
“As these processes are ongoing, we won’t be commenting on the Fire and Emergency report.
“We remain committed to rebuilding a supermarket on the site as quickly as possible and are focused on progressing the rebuild.”
New World Victoria Park
- Was a 4261sq m supermarket on a 7698sq m site
- Located at 2 College Hill, Freemans Bay
- Owner/operator Steve Purton
- Store was undergoing a $28m refurbishment, said to be New Zealand’s largest supermarket refurbishment, at the time the fire ignited
- It was being reclad and upgraded to give it a sharper appearance
- New lighting, refrigeration, racking and air conditioning were to be installed
- The introduction of a click-and-collect system was planned
- Seismic upgrade planned for the three-level structure
- Fire occurred on June 17, 2025
- Store estimated to have $100m annual revenue, net after tax profit of $4m-$6m.
Anne Gibson has been the Herald‘s property editor for 25 years, written books and covered property extensively here and overseas.
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