Firefighters welcome wet summer

The rain was a ‘‘saving grace’’ for firefighters in fire prone Marlborough this summer.

Over recent years, Marlborough has been plagued by a number of large fires, destroying thousands of hectares of vegetation.

In 2015, two large fires tore through the dry hills in Waikakaho Valley and the Wairau Valley damaging about 1650 hectares of grassland between them.

However the summer of 2017/18 has been one for the books, the good books that is, rural fire boss John Foley said.

Marlborough Kaiko¯ ura principal rural fire officer John Foley said in what is usually the busiest time of the year, this summer had been relatively quiet.

‘‘This year round has been one out of the bag,’’ he said.

He said, the ‘‘substantial’’ rain throughout January, February and March ‘‘kept the fire risk right down’’.

‘‘There’s been very few vegetation fires in the district and obviously because of the amount of rain we have had since late December so it’s been a good season for us,’’ Foley said.

Throughout the year, the firefighters often got about 100-150 vegetation call outs. However it had been a quiet start, with the number of call outs being under 20.

‘‘This year [starting from October] I reckon we might have had a dozen to 15 [call outs], it wouldn’t be any more than 20,’’ he said.

Foley said December was the most concerning time of the summer season with the grass drying out in the heat as temperatures soared as high as 33 degrees.

‘‘December certainly got dry but then we got that rain in midjanuary. We’ve had some of the hottest days we have ever had but we have also had the most rain we’ve had for a long time we have had too.’’

Blenheim Volunteer Fire Brigade chief fire officer Nigel Botham said the rain was a ‘‘saving grace’’ for firefighters in Marlborough.

He said while it had been ‘‘business as normal’’ for his urban team attending medical call outs, fire alarms and accidents, he was stoked the rural firefighters had experienced a quiet summer.

‘‘It did look divey at one stage around Christmas time, it was really dry but obviously we had a lot of rain on and off. Maybe that was the saving grace,’’ he said.

Botham said the biggest call out his crew had attended this summer was the fire at the Blenheim Dry Cleaning business on March 1. The fire tore through the Queen St store, destroying several wedding dresses.

In January, 93mm of rain was recorded in the region. In February, that figure more than doubled, with 201mm recorded by Metservice.