Fire crews, garden save house
A Nelson man whose house is still standing after the massive wildfire is determined to find the firefighters who worked through the night to protect his home.
A massive forest fire started on Tuesday afternoon near tinder-dry Nelson, and 182 houses have been evacuated, affecting about 400 people. A state of emergency has been declared in Tasman, with the fire now covering about 1900 hectares. At least one house has been lost, with others yet to be confirmed, Civil Defence said.
Guy Mollett said he had a ‘‘pretty sleepless night’’ at a friend’s home after his family were evacuated from their Redwood Valley home on Tuesday night.
After police gave notice to move out his family were evacuated about 7pm, but Mollett remained to do what he could to protect the property.
‘‘I stayed back for another hour to damp down what I could, just knowing that the embers were probably what was going to destroy the place.’’
He hosed down the wood piles and the grass around the immediate property, anything he thought would catch fire easily.
When Mollett began to feel the heat of the fire, he knew it was time to go. The police officer returned and told him it was time to get out.
‘‘That was the point I said, ‘hey this is beyond me’.’’
He took a photo as he left the property, certain that the next photo he took would be its charred remains.
Standing at the bottom of the hill, he watched the flames roll over the hill. ‘‘That’s when you really felt how serious it was at that point.’’
Ground crews and helicopters have been fighting the fire, first called in about 2pm on Tuesday at Pigeon Valley, near Wakefield, about 30km southwest of Nelson.
As firefighters fought the fire on Wednesday, another one broke out on Rabbit Island, across from Nelson Airport.
Mollett said the police and fire crews had been ‘‘fantastic’’ and he had heard some pretty amazing stories of how firefighters had saved homes in the valley. It was amazing to see where they had stopped the fire.
‘‘It must have been horrendous for them, when you saw the fire come over the hill, if they were still up in that, hat’s off to them.
‘‘I’m determined to find out who they are.’’
To see the firefighters working again on Wednesday made Mollett proud to be a Kiwi.
Mollett said he designed his garden after attending a demonstration by the Appleby Rural Fire Brigade a couple of years ago on how to protect a property from fire.
As a result he had planted flax along the vulnerable, exposed side of his property to act as a fire break.
‘‘It all came to mean something last night.’’
The family were able to go home briefly on Wednesday morning and were relieved to find their home had been saved, as had their neighbour’s.
‘‘There is damage right up to within metres of the house, all the fences are gone but no structural damage at this stage.
‘‘I have heard one or two smaller dwellings have probably been burnt to the ground in Redwood Valley but when you look at the scale of it, not to lose one or two houses was incredible.’’
He said it would likely be several days before they could return as the hotspots needed to be dealt with.