Off the farm and into the fires
Volunteer firefighter Nick Boon had just got back to his farm after a gruelling 12-hour shift fighting the Port Hills blaze when he and his brother Matt got the call.
There was another fire – this time off Manion Rd near Rolleston.
The two men were shifting irrigators on the farm, but the shout for help was more important and they dropped everything to go, ignoring exhaustion to serve their community.
The brothers manage a beef, sheep and cropping farm in Dunsandel, while also volunteering at the local fire station. Matt has served for 17 years and Nick seven.
Nick’s first shift for the Port Hills fire – on the day it began, February 14 – went from 8.30pm to 6.30am the next day, before he headed back to the fire station and then later out to the Manion Rd vegetation fire with his brother, a blaze they had contained within an hour or two.
He hadn’t slept since the night before the fire began, so was running off no sleep.
“I went to catch up with [Matt] at the irrigators and help him get the job done before going to bed, but then we had to head away again. It’s all part of it,” Nick said.
The adrenaline rush of firefighting was enough to keep him going.
“Once the siren goes off ... you switch on and focus on the job at hand. But certainly by the time 4.30, five o'clock came around, I was absolutely shattered.”
Nick had been at the Dunsandel fire station training with his crew when they were first called out to the Port Hills.
Matt took a 12-hour shift starting at 6.30pm on February 15, the second day of the fire - just hours after he had helped at Rolleston.
With a farm to run, the brothers took alternate shifts at the Port hills fire, one looking after the farm, the other helping control the blaze.
Matt had a role in diverting water to appliances across the hills, while Nick was monitoring the fire from a distance, protecting homes and infrastructure across Worsley Spur.
The Port Hills fire burned through 650 hectares of vegetation, prompted the evacuation of more than 100 homes and destroyed one container home.
A local state of emergency was lifted on February 21, but more than two weeks after it broke out, firefighters are still on the ground, extinguishing hotspots burning underground.
The Dunsandel crew have had a busy summer with 29 call-outs so far, 13 of which were scrub and vegetation fires.
Nick said the week of the Port Hills fire kept the Dunsandel brigade on their toes, as they also dealt with the Manion Rd fire and a scrub fire in Springston within two days. “Emergency services were stretching their limits, so it was good that all the volunteer brigades came together and worked as one.”
The emergencies made the brothers’ farming schedule even busier during harvest, but their father and another farm worker are used to the two men being called away at a moment’s notice.
A dry summer left many fire brigades concerned about the possibility of wildfires, but Matt said the Dunsandel crew had plenty of volunteers to manage under pressure.
United Fire Brigades’ Association chief executive Bill Butzbach said volunteers like the Boons dropped everything to attend to the Port Hills blaze two weeks ago.
“Our volunteers responded to the call immediately, downing tools wherever they were – be that on the farm, in the office, or out with their families,” he said.
“They put everything on the line to protect the community.”
Matt Boon said the friends he had and the chance to serve his community had fuelled his passion to be a volunteer firefighter. “I like the sense of helping your community. And probably the friendships and things you make out of it. At big fires like this, you get to meet a lot of people and catch up with a lot of people you’ve met through other fires.”
Fire crews continued to work on the fire yesterday, a Fire and Emergency NZ (Fenz) spokesperson said, with seven firefighters at the site extinguishing hotspots.
A drone will again fly over the fire ground on Saturday morning, and crews will continue to put out any hotspots.
An investigation into the fire is still ongoing, the spokesperson said.
Fenz’s front-line workforce is 86% volunteers. Of New Zealand’s 647 fire stations, volunteers are in charge of 567, including the Dunsandel fire station.
Matt said it was important to have lots of volunteers involved for when a disaster like the Port Hills fire happened, as most firefighters still had full-time jobs to do.
“That’s why we need lots of volunteers – to lighten the workload a bit more so we’re still able to get our jobs done.”
Butzbach said: “We owe so much to our volunteers who are willing to drop everything at a moment’s notice, sometimes at great cost to themselves, their families and their employers to fight for their communities. They truly are the backbone of our communities.”
“Emergency services were stretching their limits, so it was good that all the volunteer brigades came together and worked as one.” Nick Boon
Firefighting farmer