Dangerous, fire-affected trees delay re-entry
Explosives may be used to fell some dangerous, fire-affected trees to help enable more Tasman district forest blaze evacuees to return home.
As residents of about 40 additional properties in the fire-affected valleys, near Nelson, were yesterday allowed back home on a conditional basis, 99 properties remained evacuated.
‘‘That’s about 275 people,’’ said Civil Defence Nelson-Tasman group controller Roger Ball. ‘‘For those who are still evacuated, we are reviewing again today [Friday] the possibilities for conditional re-entry but as we get further into that, we are now probably hitting more challenging and riskier situations where more work needs to be done. The guys on the ground are making really good progress but it’s a big job and there is still a lot of fire danger out there.’’
At this stage evacuated residents should plan on being away from home until at least the end of the weekend, possibly longer, Ball said.
Fire and Emergency New Zealand incident controller Trevor Mitchell outlined the issue with trees on many of the evacuated properties. ‘‘A lot of those properties are fire affected but the big problem is they’ve got these dirty big old man pines and bluegum trees that have got fire in them and some of them have fallen over already because the fire burns out their root plate and they just topple over without any warning.’’
Specialised dangerous tree fellers ‘‘aren’t prepared to go near them’’.
‘‘So ... we’ll try and get to them with a machine and push them over with a machine and we may need to resort to explosives for the ones that we can’t get to for that,’’ Mitchell said.
‘‘It is a very hazardous job and we’ve got some very specialist people working on it.’’
Ball said the team was looking at the possibility of holding a drop-in session today for people who remained evacuated.
‘‘What we’re aiming to do is set up an opportunity where we can talk to you oneto-one about the situation and about your particular needs,’’ he said. ‘‘We’d like to understand those as best we can.’’ Meanwhile, Mitchell said while the 2300ha blaze was now considered contained, it was not yet under control.
‘‘If you’ve got a fence around it, you’ve got containment but everything inside the fence is not controlled, it’s just going anywhere,’’ he said. ‘‘We keep saying [we’re] making progress but it’s very slow progress, it’s a tough job. It’s just about all underground now.’’
The forest area had ‘‘all the old stumps that are 15 years old and all the piles of harvesting waste that are sitting in there that’s 15 years old and with the drought, it’s all as dry as a chip and it’s just burning itself into the ground’’.
Some areas had to be dug up with a shovel ‘‘but if we can get a machine there, we’ll dig it out with a machine and they [firefighters] wet it down as they dig it out’’.
‘‘It’s just this long, slow process.’’ Ball reiterated that any residents allowed back home on a conditional basis had to be ready to evacuate at short notice if the situation changed.
Some responder resources had been released while the fire suppression efforts were tracking well ‘‘and we do have a good handle on our evacuation planning’’.
‘‘We are releasing some of the NZDF [New Zealand Defence Force] personnel ... but it’s been made very clear to us that they can be back here at very short notice,’’ Ball said. ‘‘I can assure you that we are retaining full capability to respond to any re-evacuation and also to continue
fighting the fire through the efforts of Fire and Emergency New Zealand.’’
For forestry workers who have been out of work since the fires began relief was in sight, after talks between the forestry sector and disaster management experts on whether a heavy machinery ban came that into effect this week, prohibiting harvesting, would allow for the resumption of any forestry work outside of the fire perimeter.
On Thursday, Civil Defence announced that a process had been agreed to allow exemptions to the ban for contractors and businesses.
Ball said he had agreed to allow contractors and some industry groups to use machinery, under strict conditions. Residential users were still discouraged from using machinery. ‘‘We have worked closely with Fire and Emergency New Zealand representatives to come up with the safest way to manage what is a very delicate situation.
‘‘In some areas, harvesting is about to get under way, and there is other work that needs to be done to enable people to do their jobs, and for businesses to operate. So, to allow this work to continue, we’ve met with industry representatives in forestry, farming, horticulture and contracting and developed a process where contractors can
‘‘A lot of those properties are fire affected but the big problem is they’ve got these dirty big old man pines and bluegum trees that have got fire in them.’’ Trevor Mitchell Fire and Emergency
apply for an exemption from the machinery ban,’’ says Ball.
Companies and contractors will be asked to sign a declaration confirming they would follow protocols on using equipment in extreme fire risk conditions.
The largest forestry business in top of South Island said it was doing all it could to ensure retired contractors were not out of pocket.
Nelson Forests said it had offered a financial support package to all of its contractor companies to ensure their employees were paid.
On Friday, 130 firefighters, nine helicopters and 16 dangerous tree assessors were working at the fire site.