IT’S not every morning of the week that you’d be happy to be awoken at 6am to a stranger banging on your front door, shouting “hello, hello, hello…is anybody home?”

But Loretta Enderby and her husband Wes, of Tarrington said they shall be eternally grateful for the unexpected awakening they got last Tuesday by a man unknown to them, alerting them that their house was on fire.

Mrs Enderby awoke first but had been unwell for the last couple of weeks and was unable to get up to answer the door.

She nudged Mr Enderby awake who then immediately ran to the door to see what the banging was all about.

The stranger alerted Mr Enderby that he could see flames at the back of the house and the two of them immediately attended to the fire with garden hoses.

It was only a few more minutes before the Hamilton Fire Brigade arrived on the scene to quickly extinguish the flames.

The stranger had been driving past when he saw flames at the back of the weatherboard home and pulled over to let the residents know their house was on fire.

The fire is suspected to have started when some ash from a fireplace was placed into the garden wheelie bin the night before at the back of the house and reignited.

The bin burnt to the ground along with two other wheelie bins next to it and as they were placed close to the back of the house, spread up the verandah pole to the barge boards, to the kitchen window and under the house, completely burning out one stump.

Mrs Enderby said her sister, who is also infirm, was asleep in another room of their house and remained oblivious to the fire throughout the whole ordeal.

“My sister has Parkinson’s disease, so with myself bedridden at present…we don’t think we would have been able to get out,” she said.

“Had it been another five or ten minutes, we believe the flames could have taken hold and goodness knows, we might not be here to tell the story.

“We’re just praising the Lord for his mercy on this occasion.

“I tell you what…it’s sharpened us up a bit.

“When you’re incapacitated, it’s a totally different story.”

Country Fire Authority District 5 commander, Shane Bailey said notification of a house fire in Tarrington came in at 6.20am.

“The Hamilton Fire Brigade was the first truck on scene within minutes of the call,” he said.

“Fire crews reported a small house fire they were able to extinguish within minutes of arrival.

“The truck was on scene and returned to base all for about half an hour in total.”

Mr and Mrs Enderby wanted to convey their sincere thanks to the stranger who spotted the flames when he was driving by, and for persisting in banging on the door to alert them.

Unfortunately, he left the scene and got on his way before Mr Enderby had the forethought to ask him his name to be able to say thank you.

“We hope he will read this,” Mrs Enderby said.

“We think he saved our lives.

“We want to let the stranger know how thankful we are for alerting us and then staying to help.”