He had hoped to have fried oysters for lunch.
Instead, the Hamilton man's Housing NZ home went up in flames after he forgot he'd put a pot of oil on the stove.
The man, who was still covered in bits of ash and didn't want to be named, could only stand at the fence of his Banbury Ave home and watch as massive black plumes of smoke went up into the bright blue Hamilton sky this morning after the oil caught fire.
He said it all happened within a couple of minutes from putting the oil on.
"It was so fast, I couldn't believe it. About three, four minutes. I just came outside and forgot about it. F***," he said. "I forgot that I put it on."
