Fire evacuees in limbo
Stressed fire evacuees face several more days away from their homes as the Nelson wildfire heads into its seventh day.
Civil Defence officials yesterday said it was understandably frustrating for the up to 3000 residents who have been evacuated from Wakefield and surrounding areas, but the wind dictated how long the cordons would remain, and it could be several days.
But overall, it was a productive day for firefighters, with forecast 50kmh winds not eventuating, allowing more work on firebreaks and a controlled burnoff in Redwood Valley to help prevent the fire’s eastern spread. It did not grow from 2325 hectares.
However, residents reported being stressed and anxious about the continuing wait to return home.
‘‘We’re feeling a little bit lost,’’ said Kristin Lindup, from Spring Grove.
‘‘I think it’s finally kicking in today that we . . . want to go home but can’t.’’
Her husband and two children, aged 7 and 4, have been staying with family in the Nelson suburb of Stoke. Lindup said she had been to the Civil Defence centre at Saxton Field, and got underwear for the children. ‘‘We only grabbed two days’ worth of clothes (when we left) – it was sort of a rush.’’
Rosie Holland was staying with family in Wai-iti, an area where residents were also told on Saturday night to be prepared to evacuate.
‘‘We’re still waiting to see if we get evacuated again,’’ she said yesterday afternoon.
Her husband and their sixmonth-old daughter were staying with her parents, who had only moved to the area from Hawke’s Bay in the past two weeks.
‘‘It’s actually quite eerie. The sky’s quite a lot clearer today . . . it kind of just feels like a normal day.
‘‘It’s just a waiting game.’’ Sam Burson said she was trying not to let her stress show to her three-year-old daughter and four-month-old baby.
‘‘I’m trying to keep it together and not show . . . it’s stressful not knowing what’s going to happen, or how long we’re going to be out of our home for, or if we’re going to have a house to go back to.’’
Burson has moved to her mother’s home in Motueka, while her husband is helping firefighters by digging firebreaks in Pigeon Valley.
‘‘It sounds like [the fire] is inching towards Wakefield,’’ she said. ‘‘I know that they’re doing the best that they can, but at the end of the day they need to keep themselves safe as much as they’ve kept us safe.’’
A few lucky evacuees were allowed back to their homes in Pigeon Valley yesterday before a change in wind direction forced a quick withdrawal. Sue Kettle scrambled to feed her chickens, ducks and cows during the brief window.
‘‘We were just running, you don’t have time to think,’’ she said.
Residents were initially given until from midday to 1pm, but after 10 minutes, they received a Civil Defence emergency alert, warning them to leave.
‘‘It said, ‘The winds have changed, you need to leave the valley now’. I grabbed somes files from my office . . . we just did what we needed to, and got out of there.’’
However, the wind force stayed largely around 20kmh yesterday, allowing firefighters to have a ‘‘very productive day’’ increasing fire breaks and retardant lines, said Fire and Emergency regional manager for rural fire John Sutton.
‘‘I don’t want to smile too much, but I’m feeling much better,’’ he said.
Stuff reporter Martin van Beynen said that from the air yesterday, the sweep of the fire seemed vast, but there were some hopeful signs.
Instead of ‘‘dirty’’ smoke that signalled a fresh flare-up, the smoke yesterday afternoon was a benign white.
Van Beynen said the scorched pine forest and farmland had been carved up by firebreaks as wide as highways.
Water has also become an issue, with concerns about the low-flowing Wai-Iti River near Brightwater, which is an important source.
Tasman district mayor Richard Kempthorne at the weekend said that while some of the water for the massive firefighting effort was coming from private reservoirs as well as via tankers from Nelson and possibly Motueka, it was also coming from the Wai-iti River.
The river helps to recharge the aquifers from which water is drawn for intensive horticulture on the Waimea Plains as well as the Tasman District Council’s reticulated supply for some major industries and residential areas, including Richmond.
‘‘It’s coming from the same short supply, some of it is,’’ Kempthorne said.
He admitted that he was worried about the effect on the river.
‘‘Absolutely, but this takes precedence over crops, and hopefully it’s not for too long, and then it can just revert back to its normal low flow at the moment.’’
Meanwhile, police are investigating two separate suspicious fires, on Walters Bluff above Iwa Rd in Nelson on Friday, and on Rabbit Island on Wednesday. They want to speak with three young men seen on a bench on the Centre of New Zealand track near Iwa Rd around 1.30pm on Friday.