editorial

WE’VE UNCOVERED SOME GREAT THINGS HAPPENING IN forestry recently, but there’s also been some worrying stuff – like the devastating wild fire at Wakefield, near Nelson. The Wakefield blaze shows just how vulnerable we are to natural events that are beyond our control.

The big fire didn’t even start in a forest, but in parched fields well away from trees. The tinder-dry conditions and wind soon whipped it up into an inferno that spread through scrub and into our workplaces.

The result was that nearly 2,000 hectares of productive forest went up in flames, driving people from their homes – but sparing houses, fortunately – then putting hundreds of loggers and others out of work as harvesting operations were shut down for almost two weeks.

That’s when the consequences of these incidents are really brought home. Scientists and weather experts tell us these extreme conditions will become more common in future years and heatwaves could last longer during our scorching summers. The fires that do break out are likely to be more intense and more dangerous.

We’ll need to be much better prepared than we are now. That includes fire prevention and response.

Our industry is actually better prepared than most. In these conditions, loggers start work earlier and stop before it gets too hot. Everyone is on high alert for things that could spark a fire. Other, non-forestry people working in rural areas need to follow the same strict work practices.

We may need wider fire breaks in some locations – something forest owners are considering. And we’ll need to give thought to having aircraft with greater water/fire retardant carrying capabilities to combat these fires. When I visited the south of France 18 months ago, French fire authorities had a large water tanker aircraft in the sky every day during their extreme heat period, ready in case a fire broke out. An expensive precaution, but still cheaper than dealing with losses like those in Wakefield.

Ironically, one of the great things we uncovered recently was right on the doorstep of Wakefield, up on the Golden Downs, where the MCH crew of Nathan Taylor and Hamish Matthews have employed a fixed felling head to cut breakages during felling and improve bunching for the yarder. They are mirroring the success of Aussie contractors who have been using these heads for years.

And up in the North Island, Nick Tombleson has used similar fixed felling head technology, but this time from Europe, to mechanise first thinnings in his Tombleson Logging crews working in Northland and Kaingaroa Forest.

Both innovations are covered in this issue, along with the aftermath of that fire.