Firefighters saved Pine Beach home as flames came so close they warped window

Tuesday, 26 January 2021

A homeowner has praised firefighters after they stopped a wildfire in his North Canterbury village – just a metre from his home.

Darren Le Breton lives on Batten Grove in Pines Beach, close to where the fire ripped through undergrowth on Monday, sending flames 12 metres high and forcing residents to evacuate from five homes.

The fire tore through about 31 hectares of scrub near the coastal settlement and continued burning overnight.

At one stage, the flames came so close to Le Breton’s home that the intense heat warped one of the back windows.

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Firefighters and helicopter crews managed to stop the fire just before the house caught alight.

“They were just continuously bombarding it [with water] – that’s what saved the house.

“I take my hat off to them – the pilots and the guys on the ground couldn’t have done a better job.”

Le Breton, a stonemason, was on the West Coast when a family member called and told him to get back home.

His property is bordered by Tuhaitara Coastal Reserve, where the tall, dry grass was “all bone dry”, which often was in summer.

“We've had it before. Every two or three years you'll get a wee puff of smoke.”

Le Breton had lived in Pines Beach for 25 years and said most of the houses there “started out as baches”.

Jennie Board called the fire brigade after seeing 4.5m flames near the back of her Dunns Ave property.

She raced to alert her neighbours, then used a garden hose to douse the flames at the edge of one neighbour’s home before beating back the fire with a shovel.

“At one point the flames were 40 feet (12 metres) high,” she said.

She stayed outside until 1.30am on Tuesday, using a hose to soak down her property, but considered herself lucky.

“If the wind had been blowing in a different direction I would have lost my property.”

Fire crews in Canterbury remained on high alert on Tuesday as temperatures soared into the mid-30s across the region. Hot weather was expected again on Wednesday, reaching 34 degrees Celsius in Christchurch.

About 30 firefighters, some using heavy machinery, were working to extinguish the Pines Beach fire. They had about 60 per cent of the blaze contained by the afternoon.

Fire and Emergency New Zealand (Fenz) Te Ihu region response coordinator Colin Russell said crews were monitoring the area closely as the hot, dry and gusty conditions made the area “volatile”.

Gusty nor’westers were expected to continue through to late Thursday, helping raise temperatures into the 30s and potentially fan any fires.

“There’s still some active fire on the perimeter but the conditions overnight and [Tuesday] morning has helped us make good progress [towards] getting this fire under control.”

Russell said the fire was no longer threatening nearby properties – some of which narrowly escaped being damaged thanks to firefighting efforts on Monday afternoon.

Crews were expected to remain in the area until at least Thursday. The cause of the fire was under investigation.

Russell said nearby residents should remain vigilant and have an escape plan ready in case they were evacuated if the fire became out of control.

“The conditions are going to be volatile through to Thursday evening, so we're really on heightened awareness moving through this high-risk period.

Canterbury is in a restricted fire season, and all permits for open-air fires across Canterbury and most of the upper South Island have been cancelled during the current weather conditions. Fireworks have also been banned until further notice in Akaroa, coastal Christchurch and the Port Hills.

Russell said this would reduce the potential for fires getting out of control.

He urged residents to avoid doing any spark-generating activities, such as grinding and cutting metals outdoors, using farm machinery or mowing lawns.

Residents should also check any previous burn sites for hot embers and call 111 immediately if they saw fire or smoke.

Meanwhile, firefighters were called to a row of trees on fire in Methven about 3.30pm on Tuesday. A Fenz spokesman said the fire was caused by a tree that fell onto power lines. Three fire engines attended the blaze and were able to contain it quickly.

Fire crews also returned to the scene of another vegetation fire in Redcliffs in the Port Hills on Monday, where flames rushed up a gully and threaten houses. The fire was extinguished and crews left the scene early on Tuesday morning.

There have been several blazes on the hills so far this summer.

Twenty properties near Cass Bay were evacuated for several hours on January 19 as three helicopters with monsoon buckets battled a fire that burned through 15 hectares of scrub in the hills above.

The fire was believed to have started when strong gusts caused tree branches to fall onto power lines.

Another fire, caused by fireworks on December 11, burned through 25 to 30ha of scrub on the city side of the hills.

A few days later, a spark from construction work caused another fire nearby, which spread across about 16ha of grass and gorse.

Fenz assistant area commander Mike Bowden last week said the high fire risk was in part due to Christchurch’s “variable weather”, which had caused a lot of plant growth.

The number of vegetation fires on the Port Hills has increased over the last three summers, according to Fenz data.

There were 13 fires on the hills between September 1, 2018, and January 19, 2019, while 14 were reported during the same period of 2019-20, and 20 between in 2020-21.