Trimble Navigation’s Christchurch, New Zealand office went up in a fiery blaze last night. It took 40 firefighters to control the fire, and several were injured when a floor collapsed. The structure had been damaged by the quake that hit February 22, but some work had been ongoing in the building.
Tragically, the building housed a $1M Lidar scanner that was used to map New Zealand quake damage and it was being packaged for shipment to Japan. The scanner and other equipment had been moved downstairs because of the quakes, but is now all a total loss.
There is coverage of the fire via TVNZ in this video and news summary.
It’s tough to hear about this news, particularly in light of the ongoing work that was being done for free by this group as part of a good corporate citizen effort to respond to the recent disasters. Firefighters were able to contain the blaze to the main two-story building, while saving annexes. All but one of the injured firefighters has been released, and the remaining firefighter’s injuries don’t appear to be life threatening.
Here’s a map view of the facility via Google Maps:
