Four fires, one day – firefighters tested

Marlborough fire crews have had their busiest day of the season, fighting multiple fires across the region flared up by heat and strong winds.

A fire spread to a forestry block in the dry and rural Waihopai Valley on Monday afternoon. It was contained overnight, but flared again around 1am yesterday.

Five helicopters were still working on the blaze yesterday, with 30 crew, an excavator and a grader on the ground.

This followed a fire that ripped through olive and gum trees on the outskirts of Blenheim and two small vegetation fires which were deemed suspicious.

Meanwhile multiple fires broke out in Christchurch over 2 kilometres along State Highway 1, likely to have been caused by a passing train.

Fire and Emergency NZ Marlborough principal rural fire officer John Foley said it was their busiest day so far this season.

‘‘Unfortunately all our fires came at once, one after the other.’’

The fire, south of the Waihopai Spy Base, 40km from Blenheim, took hold around 4.45pm on Monday. It started in a stubble paddock when crew harvesting wheat had an equipment failure, Foley said. ‘‘[They] did a great job at trying to contain it, but the wind pushed it away from them.

‘‘Unfortunately it climbed into a block of pine trees,’’ he said.

Foley estimated the blaze had covered 30 to 50 hectares of terrain.

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Foley reminded people using equipment that could potentially create heat to ‘‘knock it off around lunch time’’.

‘‘It doesn’t take much of a spark to ignite the grass,’’ he said.

Earlier in the day, a fire ripped through 100 metres of olive trees and gum trees beside a railway line in Marlborough.

Children at the nearby Riverlands School, on the outskirts of Blenheim, were told not to use the cycleway that runs alongside the tracks. Parents were told to arrange to get children home safely, while a helicopter dumped water on the blaze.

The cause of the fire, on a private property at the Riverlands end of Alabama Rd, was unknown.

Blenheim urban, Blenheim rural and Rarangi fire crews were called to the scene about 12.30pm on Monday, Foley said. A crew from North bank was called to help.

Two small vegetation fires, which also broke out in Blenheim on Monday, were deemed suspicious.

Blenheim Volunteer Fire Brigade deputy chief fire officer Carl Jackson said the fires on the banks of the Taylor River were within 30 minutes of each other.

Just after 2pm, crews were called to a flax bush which had caught alight at the end of White St, near Taylor River.

The second fire, beside Athletic Park, was 2 metres by 2m, Jackson said.

‘‘This is the second job along this stretch for the afternoon, so we are treating it as suspicious.’’