Fireworks to blame for Mount Wellington blaze

Sunday, 1 January 2017

Firefighters battle a fire on Auckland's Mt Wellington.

Fireworks let off on Auckland's Mt Wellington on Saturday night started a fire which burned in perfect circles and threatened to injure those above.

Hundreds of people called emergency services as flames shot up from the volcanic cone just after 12am.

Mt Wellington's senior station officer Stuart Millar said a large group of young men had set off fireworks on the dry grass.

Hundreds called emergency services as flames shot up from Mount Wellington.

The fire burnt in two perfect circles which was a natural phenomenon and not a result of anything malicious, he said. 'The two rings are essentially the fire spreading and the circle is the burnt out area.'

**READ MORE:

Smoke billowed over Mount Wellington as the fire burned on Sunday morning.

* Auckland's Mt Wellington ablaze for the New Year

* Multiple Northland campgrounds, houses threatened by 'quickly moving' fire

A large area of Mount Wellington is charred black following the New Year blaze.

* Second helicopter scrambled as Northland fire grows**

Millar said there were a number of people on the hilltop above the fire who reported having breathing difficulties because of the large plumes of smoke that billowed up. 'It had the potential to get quite big. It was pretty stupid on those young guys behalf to set off fireworks on a mountain with dry grass.'

Flames burn through a block of chopped down pine at Peria on Saturday night.

Luckily the fire stopped when it reached the road, he said.

Police confirmed they were investigating the fire.

Hadyn Godfrey was watching the Sky Tower display from the side of Mount Wellington, and saw the chaos unfold.

'It was right after the countdown, only a minute or so after the fireworks started in town,' he said.

'Someone started shooting a Roman candle, and they shot it down over the hill.

'A couple of minutes after that we saw a whole bunch of smoke, and people said there was a fire.'

Dana Franklin saw the fire while driving back from a fireworks display at Mission Bay, and said Panmure was blanketed in thick smoke.

'The smoke plumes were absolutely massive … It was surreal to see,' she said.

It took fire crews two hours to extinguish the flames.

The damage was clearly visible on Sunday, with a large area of ground charred black on the side of Mount Wellington.

Meanwhile, three helicopters were still battling a large scrub fire in Northland.

The blaze, near a Department of Conservation campsite at Matai Bay on Karikari Peninsula, was covering a front of 400 metres on Sunday morning and had forced several evacuations.

Another fire in Northland on New Year's Eve saw houses and tents evacuated at Pataua South, near Whangarei.

It burnt through several square kilometres of gorse before being extinguished on Sunday morning.

Earlier on Saturday evening, it took seven fire crews and two helicopters to put out a blaze in a block of recently chopped down pine forest at Oruru Rd, Peria, east of Kaitaia.

On Auckland's North Shore, police will be investigating a suspected case of arson at a derelict house on Lake Pupuke Drive in Takapuna.

The fire was put out about 9:30pm on Saturday, and a scene guard was stationed at the property overnight.

Fire Service shift manager Carren Larking said call-outs peaked as Auckland rang in the New Year.

'It was actually quite busy around midnight with probably as many calls, if not more, than we would get for Guy Fawkes,' she said.

Larking said things had settled down by Sunday morning.

'It's a beautiful day out there, let's hope people behave.'