Source: Radio New Zealand
Fire and Emergency said the fire ripped through cutover pine forest across several gullies. RNZ / Alexander Robertson
Firefighters, helicopters and heavy machinery are back at a large forestry fire near Whanganui trying to get it under control before winds pick up in the afternoon.
It has so far ripped through more than 100 hectares at Lismore Forest, after being first reported at 5.15pm on Sunday.
The blaze has burnt through cutover forest across several gullies and by 10pm had reached standing trees and was burning in several locations.
Crews had to scale back their response when it got dark because of the steep terrain.
A small crew remained to patrol through the night and put out spot fires on the access road.
By Monday morning the response was back in full swing.
“The fire has meandered into the ground fuels underneath the tall trees so this morning we’ve had helicopters and we will follow with ground crews,” incident controller Renee Potae told RNZ.
“Working in the area of the tall trees just to ensure it stays along the ground, we don’t want it to move up the trunks into the tall trees, which it hasn’t yet, so we’re working really hard to contain the fire into a manageable state,” she said.
Five helicopters are at the scene and further ground crews will be added later in the day to stagger the attack.
“The temperature is starting to heat up already but we’ve got light winds,” Potae said.
“After lunch however we’re expecting a north-westerly to be stronger, perhaps 20-25km an hour and maybe gusting stronger, and low humidity after lunch which makes quite a big difference, so we’ve got the aircraft and the ground crews working really hard while we’ve got this period of relatively low fire behaviour.”
Potae said the fire fight was a strategic one.
“There are areas in the cutover where there is active fire but we can sort of let that burn for a little while we concentrate on our more pressing tasks, and then move to those secondary tasks once we’re on top of what we think are the priorities, it just requires a lot of strategy and prioritisation with different types of fuel in the same fire ground,” she said.
Potae said it was not yet known what caused the fire.
No properties have been evacuated.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
