Ashes fell like snow
A slow trickle of people make their way into Cafe Rhubarbe in Wakefield on Tuesday morning.
As the day wears on, locals gradually replace the steady flow of Defence Force personnel, firefighters and police officers who stopped by the eatery when it reopened, as usual, at 8.30am.
By early afternoon, you could be forgiven for thinking you were in any other sleepy community in New Zealand. Until you hear the conversations. ‘‘On Friday I was in my office,’’ joint owner of Tall Poppy real estate in Wakefield, Wendy Pearson, said.
‘‘It was really spooky . . . I was watching everybody leaving, there was ash falling like snow.’’
Pearson was still in the village at 4pm on Friday, waiting on her elderly father, who was reluctant to leave his Wakefield home.
‘‘There were charred pine needles all over the sidewalk. It was really disconcerting, it was quite quiet by then.’’
When police knocked on her dad’s door a short time later, they finally left for her house in Richmond.
‘‘It’s been really emotional, I’ve been finding it hard to focus on my life outside of Wakefield,’’ she said as the office reopened yesterday.
‘‘I’ve still got a lump in my gut, it’s affecting so many people who are holding up well, but it’s been a terrible shock for the community.
‘‘Every time I hear a siren, I’m wondering what’s that about.’’
Just before 1pm, a siren goes off. The longer it lasts, the more uncertain people sipping their drinks start to look.
The wailing stops after a minute, and people resume their conversations. A woman in a fluorescent jacket emerges, telling people the siren had nothing to do with the fire.
Further down the road, Phil Bell is counting up his losses.
‘‘The wastage is huge . . . thank God for insurance,’’ the Four Square owner says as he goes through food that has been sitting on shelves since police came knocking on Friday.
While glad to get ‘‘a head-start’’ and to have reopened the store on Monday, Bell was frustrated by a lack of contact from Civil Defence during the emergency.
‘‘Through that whole time, we never heard one thing from them.’’
Back outside, a man gets into his car. His two children are in Hope, attending a makeshift school set up at a church for Wakefield school children.
He’s not staying.
‘‘It’s good to come back and check on your house . . . but until there’s a bit more certainty . . . it is not worth the stress.’’
It was young families and the elderly that Adrian Mullan was thinking of.
He, his wife and cat had moved back to Wakefield from a friend’s home at Richmond at about 8pm on Monday, and said it would be easy for them to pack up and leave again if the worst happened.
‘‘There’s only two of us, but I’m thinking about a young couple with a baby and two little kids, and not knowing anywhere to go.’’
The outpouring of support from the community had been ‘‘amazing’’.
But Mullan, who lived in the region for 50 years, had never known it to be this dry for this long.
Ashburton firefighter Richard Ellis filled up a water tanker at Wakefield fire station, just across the highway.
He was working to dampen down hotspots 20 kilometres away in Pigeon Valley, where conditions were ‘‘still smoky’’.
The tanker carried 7500 litres of water, and it was the second time he’d filled it up by 11am yesterday.
Water was something weighing on Marlene Lines’ mind as she came into Wakefield to shop.
She and husband Peter grow hops, grapes and raise sheep on 100 hectares of land in the nearby community of Wai-iti .
The amount of water they are allowed to take to water their crops from local waterways has already been cut by 20 per cent, and further cuts were likely.
A decision would be made at a meeting this evening, Peter said.
‘‘The hops are struggling. I was very badly affected by the wind about three weeks ago.’’
He said the situation had been worsened by the dry weather.
Local growers were hoping to make water in the Kainui dam last for another 45 days, but were ‘‘going to have to reduce the rate of letting it go’’.
Lines had already sold about half of his lambs, 400, because they were running out of grass to eat.
‘‘When’s the rain coming? Nobody seems to know.’’