• A charging motorbike battery caused a fire, destroying a home and damaging two others in Milldale.
• A person in the shower escaped, but two cats died in the blaze.
• Fire and Emergency confirmed the fire was electrical, starting where the battery was charging.

A person taking a shower was forced to dash to safety when a charging motorbike battery caught fire before engulfing a north Auckland two-storey home and spreading to neighbouring houses.

A large pile of black charred wood and mangled steel is all that is left of the home that went up in flames on Lees Street, Milldale, while two neighbouring houses suffered extensive damage but are still standing.

Fire and Emergency New Zealand today confirmed that the fire was electrical, starting where a motorbike battery was charging.

A neighbour, who asked not to be named, said one of the occupants of the destroyed home was in the shower listening to music, so didn’t notice the fire break out.

“The neighbours went and knocked on the door and he didn’t respond.

“He came out and saw the fire and ran outside, and he couldn’t rescue his cats.”

No one was injured in the blaze, but neighbours told the Herald two cats had died.

Firefighters battle a fire that has spread to two homes in Lees St, Milldale.

Another neighbour, who asked not to be named, said the incident was “pretty traumatic”.

“It went so quick, they’ve been left with nothing.”

She was on a video call when she was first alerted to the fire after she heard a car beeping and people shouting.

“I came out to see what was happening, and the flames were massive in front of the house.

“There were a couple of explosions ... we started shouting to our neighbours over here, ‘Get out. We need to get out’.”

When she began to feel the heat from the blaze from inside her own home, she realised she needed to evacuate.

Charred remains of a house fire in Milldale, Auckland. Photo / Carson Bluck

“I noticed that in the house next to us, smoke started to billow out the roof because it had gone inside of their house ... and then started to look like it was coming into our house.

“So I started trying to just grab stuff and get it out of our house, and then the whole neighbourhood started helping me.”

Her house was spared from the flames in the end with the fire contained by 12.42pm. Fire and Emergency said crews remained on site to extinguish remaining hotspots until around 7pm.

A Fire and Emergency spokesperson said today that the fire was electrical.

“The fire was identified as starting where a motorbike battery was charging.

“Due to fire damage, fire investigators can’t determine whether the cause was the battery or the charger. The battery is not a lithium-ion battery.”

The metal skeleton of a burnt motorbike remains at the front of the property.

Charred remains of a motorbike after house fire in Milldale. Photo / Carson Bluck

Jaime Lyth is a multimedia journalist for the New Zealand Herald focusing on crime and breaking news. Lyth began working under the NZ Herald masthead in 2021 as a reporter for the Northern Advocate in Whangārei.