Vast burn reminds firefighter of Aussie

Fire and Emergency NZ crew leader Nathan Palmer cut his holiday in Christchurch short to go home and fight the flames in the hills around Nelson.

The vast burn was something he had seen abroad but not come up against locally until now. Working the perimeter was tough work, made more draining when dragging a hose.

“It’s quite physical work,” Palmer said.

His team was clocking off at the end of 12-hour shifts dirty but glad to get a breather, he said.

Palmer had not dealt with a fire of such magnitude in New Zealand in more than two decades of experience. But he had seen blazes like it in Australia: “This probably comes on par with some of that.”

Palmer praised the community who were trying to help any way they could including preparing food.

Wakefield resident Shelley Sims dropped everything to help. On Wednesday, Sims found herself urgently packing lunches for the firefighters who would be

There are new areas in which residents should be preparing to evacuate.

Inspector Zane Hooper

spending hours in the air tackling the blaze from above.

Sims is a wholesale specialist at FreshBake in Brightwater. There was a lack of staff rostered on in the bakery because it was a holiday, and they needed to complete the work within a 50-minute window, she said.

“So I grabbed a customer who took their jacket off, washed their hands, and went out the back and started wrapping stuff.

“We couldn’t have done it without him, 100 per cent.”

Sims had another helper yesterday as her 6-year-old daughter was unable to attend school.

About 7pm she told the Weekend Herald her family were preparing to leave their home on Hooper Place, and it seemed that they were among the last to go in their area.

There were lots of helicopters and small planes overhead, Sims likening it to a “war zone”.

About 120 police assisted with the initial evacuation in Wakefield.

Inspector Zane Hooper, Acting Tasman District Commander, said the additional area now to be evacuated was bound by Barton Lane to the north and Higgins Rd to the east, through to Baigent Valley Rd to the south.

“Additionally, there are new areas in which residents should be preparing to evacuate.”