A woman who helped survivors of the serious fire in Hastings on Monday afternoon describes the injuries suffered as "absolutely horrific".
Emergency services were called to the fire at a derelict building on Heretaunga Street West at 2:30pm on Monday.
One boy died from his injuries in Hawke's Bay Hospital early on Tuesday morning, while another remains in hospital in a stable condition.
Sam Huckle was in her office at Bayswater Vehicles, when two boys came running up, screaming there had been a fire.
"[One] said they were playing with a lighter and then all of a sudden there was a big bang, and his cousin was on fire, and they just ran - they just ran out the building and up the street and screaming," she told Newshub.
"Nobody really understood what was going on at that stage, because the fire hadn't really taken off, so they couldn't see the smoke. By the time they got here was when people started calling the emergency services."
One of the boys Ms Huckle helped had been badly burned. At first, he was in shock, and then the pain set in and he began screaming.
"The little boy we were looking after, the burns and the fire must have been so hot, and whatever it was that exploded, his skin was completely gone," she says. "There was no blisters, he wasn't bleeding, his skin was just gone.
"You could see all the skin off the front of his legs was burnt off. He kept saying 'my cousin's dead, my cousin's caught on fire'."
She talked to the injured boy to keep him calm and he told her how the fire had started.
"They were just running amuck, and being little kids and exploring, went through a gate into somewhere they shouldn't have been," Ms Huckle says. "They didn't know what they were getting into.
"They were mucking around with a lighter and something happened, a fire exploded and they just ran. They were so frightened they just ran."
The uninjured boy was frightened and ran away back home, while other workers raced off to see if anyone else could be helped.
The injured boy's cousin had been pulled from the flames. She saw him being loaded into the ambulance and says his injuries were even worse.
"Terrible, never seen anything like it," Ms Huckle says. "He was completely covered in burns, his shirt was gone.
"It was horrific, for that to happen to a little kid, absolutely horrific… he couldn't speak… It's not something you want to see ever again."
Police say five adults were taken to hospital as a result of smoke inhalation, but they have all been discharged.
Newshub.
