Fire warning after blaze burns out
‘‘It’s not like a house fire where you can go into a house afterwards and look around to see if someone has left a pot on a stove.’’
Principal rural fire officer Matt Cook
Fire investigators will attempt to piece together what caused a major scrub fire on the Coromandel that at its peak was out to a 2.5km perimeter.
Firefighters worked on the blaze from Saturday afternoon through to Sunday evening and were still monitoring the site near Pumpkin Hill Rd, north of Tairua yesterday.
Principal rural fire officer Matt Cook said it could be difficult to determine the cause of the fire because bringing the blaze under control required firefighters to work over the site extensively.
‘‘We also had to have monsoon buckets dump water over the site,’’ he told Stuff.
‘‘It’s not like a house fire where you can go into a house afterwards and look around to see if someone has left a pot on a stove.
‘‘It’s going to be harder because we spent so much time working on it.’’
Cook commended the volunteer firefighters from various brigades who worked on the fire over the weekend.
‘‘We had about 30 people there until 5pm last night [Sunday], to make sure any hot spots were dampened down.’’
Two helicopters took turns at dumping water on the coastal fire on Sunday to help ground crews bring the blaze under control.
At least one staff member was on site yesterday to make sure the fire did not flare up again.
‘‘We’re just going to monitor it for the next few days, using thermal imaging cameras,’’ Cook said. The fire covered private residential sections. ‘‘There was a lot of manuka burning and gorse, but sadly a lot of native trees too.
‘‘I know people did a lot of planting down there so that’s a loss.
‘‘But no structures were damaged, no-one was hurt.’’
People were asked to move out of their homes on Saturday as a precaution.
Thames-Coromandel District Council’s civil defence team supported the evacuation and arranged for overnight accommodation and welfare support, but in the end it was not needed.
The council’s civil defence controller Garry Towler said 26 people and about four to six pets, self-evacuated the Pumpkin Hill area with help from police.
‘‘Most were able to return to their properties later on Saturday evening, while a number chose to stay with family and friends and return on Sunday.’’
Cook said firefighters were pleased no-one was hurt but it was a good time to pass on some safety messages ahead of the summer holiday season.
‘‘We just want people to be really careful, don’t have a bonfire, there’s no reason to have anything like rubbish fires now.
‘‘Compost it. People have to reduce their reliance on fire over summer.’’