Residents testy at tight fire cordon
"It was managed incorrectly right from the word go. Civil Defence and the rural fire department and defence should have been called in earlier. The fire would have been a lot smaller.'' Port Hills resident Cory Beynon
It is not knowing that is the worst.
As Hoon Hay Valley residents queued at the fire cordon in Christchurch yesterday morning, their frustration was obvious. Along with Kennedys Bush Rd, the road was opened for two hours from 10am, for residents only.
While everyone praised the firefighting efforts that had saved many of their homes, they had only criticism for the complete lack of communication and misinformation.
‘‘F ...... idiots,’’ one resident said with a disgusted head-shake, at the news the initial resident registration had closed at 2am.
‘‘Some of us like to sleep,’’ another called out.
There was further confusion at the briefing, with one official saying they had to be out by 11am, and another saying 12 noon.
Many had not been allowed home since evacuating on Tuesday or Wednesday.
Stubble had reached full beard, with the razors still in the bathroom. Some were still in the same stinky clothes.
Some had ‘‘blackmailed’’ their way through, pleading the need to feed elderly cats.
While Civil Defence has said four houses were destroyed, noone seemed to know exactly which properties they were.
‘‘The hardest thing for me has been the not knowing,’’ one resident said.
Despite only 11 houses being destroyed across the fire area, several locals said they had been reduced to trawling through Fairfax Media photos online to try to work out whether their home was damaged.
‘‘That’s not a big number,’’ said resident Chris Millar. ‘‘Surely that is manageable in terms of communication – then people can rest easy. Nobody has really stepped up and owned the responsibility for making sure that happens.’’
Millar said he spent all week trying to get information, with no luck. He thought his house was standing but was still not getting the regular updates promised at Saturday’s residents’ meeting.
Peter Pritchard said the street residents had to put up their own road-block on Wednesday morning, before they were evacuated, to stem an endless stream of rubberneckers. ‘‘That was pretty disappointing.’’
Four days on, he still had not been allowed back in and had no idea of the state of his home.
‘‘The communication has been pretty average. That’s where a lot of the frustration has come from.’’
Cory Beynon was having a lastminute cigarette before heading up the hill with his 11-year-old son, Levi. He figured smoking would not be allowed in the fire area.
He had been home once, having pleaded the need to feed his 28 chickens and his cats Popeye and Olive, who were too old to move.
He had six minutes to evacuate, once he’d saved his classic cars out of storage at the bottom of the valley – a rare Skoda Felicia and a 1973 customised Morris ute.
Beynon’s house was intact but severely smoke and waterdamaged. He was also critical of the disaster’s management.
‘‘It was managed incorrectly right from the word go.
‘‘Civil Defence and the rural fire department and defence should have been called in earlier. The fire would have been a lot smaller.
‘‘But they saved my house – which is good,’’ Beynon said.
He, his partner and Levi had been staying with friends – seven of them in a small house. He planned to use the two-hour window to clean out the fridge and freezer and had brought six loaves of bread to feed ‘‘his boys and girls’’ – the chooks.
Residents worried that yesterday’s limited access meant they would not be allowed back permanently for some time.
About 120 homeowners were at their properties in Kennedys Bush after being granted access through a cordon in the area yesterday.
Civil Defence were letting people through the fire cordon, following ‘‘significant progress’’ containing the fire.
Adult residents would be allowed temporary access to retrieve essential items through two cordon points: 305 Kennedys Bush Rd and 51 Hoon Hay Valley Rd.
Access was extended until noon as many had difficulty attending the early briefings. About 30 people waited at the checkpoints yesterday morning and they were allowed through the cordon.
Worsleys Rd, which was ‘‘the most at risk of fire spreading’’, remained closed.
Weather conditions and the risk of the fire to spread would determine continued access.
Twenty fire crews had made ‘‘good progress’’ overnight, with an estimated 68 per cent of the fire now controlled within a 29-kilometre perimeter.
About 150 firefighters are working to extinguish the blaze.
Three aircraft dropped about 60,000 litres of fire retardant between Kennedys Bush Rd and Hoon Hay Valley Rd on Saturday, and there was another drop in the Marley’s Hill area yesterday.
Fire behaviour specialist Nathan Keoghan said the risk of fire remained high.
A total fire ban for Christchurch is still in place.
‘‘The 3 [millimetres] of rain over the last 24 hours has been helpful; however, more is needed . . . about 50mm in one day, or 30mm over three consecutive days, is needed to cool the extreme ground temperatures and lessen the risk of unburnt fuel catching fire.’’
Eleven houses were destroyed and hundreds of residents evacuated last week when the massive fire scorched the hills above Christchurch.
Starting south of Christchurch in Marley’s Hill, the fires grew to cover more than 2000 hectares.
– Fairfax NZ