The Fire Service in Hastings has concluded a huge fire which destroyed a coolstore on the northern outskirts of the city was not started deliberately.
Fire crews from throughout Hawke's Bay spent almost two hours on Thursday last week battling a fire in the empty coolstore, built about 40 years ago to store apples.
Embers from the fire also ignited plastic covered stacks of apple packing trays about 150 metres away.
Incident Controller Chris Nicholl says fire safety officers have thoroughly investigated the coolstore blaze and found it was not suspicious.
The Department of Labour is continuing to investigate the cause of the fire.
