Settlement rising from ashes of ‘firestorm’
A month after a fire devastated the tiny village of Lake Ohau in the Mackenzie Basin, Herald on Sunday reporter Logan Church checks in with a community trying to rebuild.
THE earth is still scorched around Lake Ohau Village — it’s black, crisp and hardened, mostly dead.
But a month on from the fire that tore through the picturesque settlement, greenery is starting to emerge.
New life. A new start, for the ravaged community.
A devastating fire broke out early on October 4 — a Sunday — residents waking to what many later described as a ‘‘firestorm’’.
The night before had been windy, even for Lake Ohau standards. Some residents spent the previous night tying down loose items outside. One homeowner told the Herald on Sunday at the time he knew something bad was going to happen.
The town itself is small — about 100 homes nestled against Lake Ohau — and roughly 30 minutes’ drive from Twizel, the nearest town.
Many properties were holiday homes, so the population grew and shrank over the year.
But on October 4, as it was the school holidays, the village was filled with people.
When the sirens sounded, residents and visitors hurriedly enacted their evacuation plan.
Cars were piled into and sped away, drivers tooting loudly as they fled, making sure people were awake.
Some residents could not hear the sirens due to the high winds — they were only woken by neighbours running through the dark streets to bang on doors and windows.
There is still disbelief noone was physically hurt or killed that morning.
But the sunrise exposed the sheer destructive force of the firestorm that struck this community.
In total, about 46 homes were destroyed, another 15 damaged. More than 5000ha had been scorched, about twice the size of the 2017 Port Hills fire or the 2019 Nelson fires.
Almost a month on from the fire the village is still cordoned off, although property owners can enter for short periods.
Waitaki Mayor Gary Kircher visited the village a week ago.
He said about 20% of the destroyed homes had been cleaned up.
‘‘It certainly improves things not having that debris sitting around — not just from a visual sense but also health and safety.
‘‘It’s really important to move that debris before the winds take it further.’’
Residents were not yet allowed to move back while the piles of debris made it unsafe.
‘‘They are almost able to. It’s probably still a couple of weeks away. It is really around that safety — while there is that loose iron around it’s just not safe for people to be there on an ongoing basis,’’ Mr Kircher said.
They were able to visit though.
He met a couple who lived in Christchurch but owned a property in the village. They had come down to see what remained of their house and determine if they could save anything.
Meanwhile, the Waitaki District Council was working to try to reconnect properties to the council’s water and wastewater network, which much of the town was on.
The pipes that fed those homes needed to be checked.
Power was also slowly being reconnected with ‘‘a number of houses’’ already back on the network.
Some residents are also already planning to rebuild.
Janet Brown and her husband moved to the area in 2006 and spent three years building a fourbedroom home.
The 2008 Global Financial Crisis forced them to move to Auckland, but they kept their Lake Ohau home and everything in it, and rented it out as a holiday home through Bookabach.
She, her husband and two children were in the village with friends when the fire broke out. The blaze ‘‘melted’’ their house.
‘‘The chimney that survived is like a biscuit — it’s just crumbling,’’ she said.
‘‘There is no foundation. Under the tin is melted glass, melted aluminium. There are millions of nails that my husband nailed in himself.’’
The fireplace had melted and boulders in a rock wall were cracked.
A firefighter told them if they had not fled, they would have been incinerated.
‘‘You saw that all lying there . . . It was just devastating.’’
After spending a week in nearby Twizel, she and her family went back to Auckland.
Even though her family was lucky to have another house to go to, it had still been hard getting to grips with what had happened.
‘‘We were exhausted. I didn’t make the kids go to school because the fatigue really set in when we got back.’’
Her family struggled to sleep. ‘‘We found that noone was sleeping and we were all having nightmares.
‘‘We’d wake up and compare our nightmares . . . I guess that is part of the shock.’’
But the family was already making plans to rebuild the property.
‘‘I talked to my architect as soon as we got back and she said ‘let’s make lemonade out of lemons’.
‘‘We’re rebuilding and we are going to build it better.’’
But they would build differently. There would be no more wooden decks. During the fire, embers landed on them and flew upwards, propelled by air underneath the decks.
Instead she asked for a concrete terrace to be built.
‘‘We’ll make it look nice but we’re not having another wooden deck.’’
She was also going to carefully consider what plants were put on the property.
‘‘I had giant red grasses . . . They are the worst things to have around your house.
‘‘I’m going to have a rock garden . . . pebbles everywhere and an irrigated lawn.’’
They were also considering moving the house further away from their neighbours.
Her insurance company had been ‘‘amazing’’, but she had heard a few complaints about other insurance companies.
The Insurance Council of New Zealand says figures on the insurance cost of the fire will not be available until six weeks after the event.
Meanwhile, Fire and Emergency New Zealand is still investigating what caused the fire. The organisation previously asked for any photographs or video of the fire from the morning it broke out to be sent to it.
‘‘A fire investigation into the cause and origin of the Lake Ohau fire is under way. This was a significant fire and the investigation will take some time to complete,’’ Fenz region manager Mike Grant said.
‘‘Although we are yet to finalise our investigation, we have determined that a number of factors have influenced the size and behaviour of the fire, such as terrain, high temperatures and severe winds.
‘‘We will be able to comment further once the investigation is complete.’’
As the cleanup continues, donations are still flooding into the Mayoral Relief Fund.
The Government pitched in with $100,000, but Mr Kircher said the fund had received about another $115,000.
Donations came from a wide range of sources, including Meridian Energy, which made a ‘‘generous’’ donation, Mr Kircher said.
Homeowners directly affected were also putting up cash to help, and a home owner who lived on the other side of the world had given $2500.
The Waitaki District Council was also talking to local Lions Clubs about what support they could give.
A ‘‘reasonable amount’’ of the funds was going towards things such as fixing council services.
If assistance was not given for that work the cost would fall on local ratepayers, he said.
There was also discussion about rebuilding the village better than it was before.
Ms Brown wants power lines to be buried due to the high winds.
‘‘We could go forward; we could build a solar farm; we could become a template for the future.’’
She also wanted everyone to work together to make sure wilding pines, which some blame for the rapid spread of the blaze, did not come back, she said.
‘‘I don’t want to be walking over that scorched land and see these wilding pines coming back.’’
❛ We’re rebuilding and we are going to build it better
Janet Brown, pictured with son William after being evacuated due
to the fire