Mortal fear: Arsonist plagues remote spot
David Fisher wonders who’s causing trouble in paradise
There is a name on the lips of most everyone at an isolated community south of Ahipara. It’s the name of a man seen close to places where fires have been deliberately lit.
And if he’s not stopped, they claim, someone will die.
The Far North township seems at the mercy of a serial arsonist. Ahipara’s volunteer fire brigade counts 14 suspicious fires since October. Of those, five have destroyed baches on the coast south of Ahipara. That in itself is seen by some to point to the culprit.
They happened at low tide, because that’s the only time you can reach this remote paradise. There is no road to this isolated community, but a path weaves its way along a reef exposed when the water recedes.
They happened after midnight and before 3am. They were set in baches that weren’t occupied. The finest ash at the burn sites is found just inside the front door, suggesting it burned first and longest just there.
James Herbert, 59, sits on a bench at the edge of a stretch of grass leading to the beach. He has always been a part of this place. He was a baby in a flax kete as his grandmother gathered seaweed, a boy who followed her when he could walk. Life in Auckland began when his mum sought medical help the provinces couldn’t provide, but even then he was drawn back to a place that is in his bones.
Finally, three years ago after his wife Laiha passed, he returned to live. Grandchildren come now — there’s a gut he cut into the grass to create a safe place for them to play in the sand away from cars driving on the beach.
“It’s not flash but it’s all we’ve got,” he says. “It’s our castle.”
When the last bach went up, the owner — like the others — was away.
“I didn’t want to ring the owner because he was in hospital but better he heard it from us.”
That’s a phone call that can’t be made from where Herbert is sitting. That’s how remote it is. Mobile phone coverage starts to the North, between Herbert’s place and Ahipara.
It’s an isolation that underscores the community’s vulnerability to an arsonist. Help isn’t just a phone call away. It’s a drive up the beach to where reception begins. That’s the first domino — the call then goes out to the volunteer firefighters, who roll out of bed and head for the station.
There’s one four-wheel-drive fire engine, driven south until the road runs out and then on to the beach. Where the sand stops and the reef begins, there are three markers.
Shipwreck Bay is the first, says fire chief Dave Ross.
“If the water is sweeping through there, you won’t get to The Gut.”
That’s the point where the reef dips down and the path through narrows between cliffs on one side and the sea on the other.
In dead of night there’s no traffic to warn but the engine’s beacons are kept flashing. The bone-jarring trip along the coast has the fire engine hugging the cliff in places and red lights atop help mark out the distance to the cliff; at times, barely a handspan. Ross: “If it’s sweeping through The Gut, you won’t get to Irongate.”
That’s where the gradient eases away to the ocean, easier for the tide to make ground.
Even from there the passage isn’t smooth. The beach is dotted with rocks — Tangaroa’s speed bumps, Herbert says, invoking the great god of the sea.
“Can’t do nothing by the time they get down here. They’re just totalled. And they can’t do anything if the tide’s coming in.”
They’ve taken to jotting down the number plates of unfamiliar vehicles. There are inquiries with the Ahipara brigade over getting fire extinguishers. The ideal would be water tanks above the baches on low banks, but who would pay for it? Some along the coast have started spacing out where their dogs spend the night, better to catch a warning bark before the first smell of smoke.
Herbert: “The thing we’re thankful for is the baches they’ve been burning are all empty. One day, they’re going to pick on the wrong bach. Someone will have come back and be sleeping in it. What happens then?” Possibly murder.
Those along the beach have a suspect. When they swap notes, they believe to have seen the same vehicle, the same face, at one fire after another. At the most recent bach fire, there were vehicle tracks. With earlier fires, they were washed away. This time, locals followed the tracks to find the best, clearest impression in the sand. Photos were taken and evidence passed to police.
As Herbert says, “you can’t do nothing if you can’t prove it”.
Police have heard the same name spoken at the beach. That they were studying links between the fires was confirmed by Detective Senior Sergeant Mark Dalzell, who oversees and runs investigations in the Far North.
“Police believe that while not all of the fires are likely to be linked to the same offender, it’s probable multiple incidents are linked to an individual.”
Details are scant on exactly how the investigation is being carried out. Forensic investigators have been used at some of the fire scenes. Intelligence analysts have had a role.
Dalzell covers a huge area as criminal investigations manager. Profiling expertise is a long way south in Auckland. And this is a progressive crime — how do police judge the right way to match what appears to be the alleged offender’s potential escalating intensity?
The first fire Dave Ross notes in the Ahipara fire station’s logbook is a car fire on the road leading out to Ahipara. Then there was the bowling club in Kaita¯ia — twice. The first fire in October may have been an electrical fault. It doesn’t fit the pattern with four people asleep in a flat on the top floor at the time. The second fire in March does — the building was empty.
In December, the first bach burned. There was a house fire in Kaitaia two days later, then a 26-hectare scrub fire a few ridges back from the baches. Then another scrub fire, at Mukurau Beach, right in that isolated community stretched along the coast.
On it goes. A car fire, another car fire, a two-storey house in Ahipara and close to the beach.
Rangi Harawira lives on the opposite side of Kaka St to the burning house. He tried to help but his garden hose couldn’t reach. “That’s too close to home, obviously,” he says.
Since, bach after bach has burned on the coast south of town.
It’s no surprise locals are worried, says Dr Michael Edwards, a specialist in psychological profiling of serial arsonists.
Edwards works for an Australia law enforcement agency, although he earned his qualifications through the University of Canterbury studying arsonists in New Zealand.
The pattern developing fits the profile of an arsonist who, says Edwards, will not stop until caught.
“The concerning trend with the Ahipara arsons is that the magnitude of these arsons will only get bigger and more dangerous for this isolated community and wider suburban Ahipara.
“There is the inherent potential of these arsons escalating to the worstcase scenario — murder — and the arsons could get out of control.”
Edwards’ masters thesis describes six types of arsonist: those who do it for revenge, those seeking excitement, those out to vandalise, those seeking profit, those trying to hide another crime, and the extremist. The most common is the revenge-seeker.
Identifying a motive, he says, doesn’t help with a conviction. However, it might lead to a clearer picture of who is lighting fires. FBI research shows that on average, serial arsonists light 34 fires before being caught.
There was the destruction of pou along the coast — the marker poles that were cut down and sawn up. Is it telling that the heads of the pou were taken?
There’s the timing of land returned to Te Rarawa, under way for almost a decade but with a significant and formal milestone in December. Like all land settlements, history was contested. Has someone conceived a grudge out of how the cards fell? Not really our job, Ross says. The brigade’s role is putting out fires, or racing to vehicle accidents, or pretty much anything where the Ahipara community is on one side and disaster lies on the other. Out here, they aren’t just the first responders. They are the response.
Many people have become amateur investigators.
“It’s somebody who knows the beach. We’re trying to figure out why,” says Herbert. They know how to navigate their way around the coast, they know to drive close to the tide so vehicle tracks are washed away.
“We’ve got a couple of names but no proof. You can’t do anything.”
There is the inherent potential of these arsons escalating to the worstcase scenario — murder — and the arsons could get out of control.
Dr Michael Edwards, serial-arsonist profiler