The Fire Service has condemned the behaviour of people who lit dozens of rubbish fires in the student quarter on Saturday, during what is traditionally one of the Fire Service's busiest nights of the year.
There were 31 callouts to the student quarter in North Dunedin between 7pm on Saturday and 7am yesterday, accounting for about a quarter of all fires reported in the South Island this Guy Fawkes night.
The Willowbank fire crew was forced to put out fires - only one of which was known to have started from a firework - in the area almost continually from 9pm to 4am.
"We had one accidental fireworks fire, and at least 30 acts of idiocy [on Saturday] night," the Fire Service's East Otago area manager, Brendan Nally, said when contacted yesterday.
While there were 31 recorded callouts, firefighters dealt with more than one fire each time, and were constantly driving from one fire to the next as people lit fires or re-lit fires firefighters had just put out, he said.
During the night groups of people were having parties and setting off fireworks in Dundas, Cumberland, Castle, Leith and Howe Sts, Harbour Tce and surrounding streets.
Campus Watch and community patrols assisted firefighters, directing them to trouble spots.
Willowbank senior station officer Craig Geddes said it was the busiest night the station had had this year in the student quarter.
The number of couch fires in the student area has dropped significantly in the past few years, after the authorities clamped down on student behaviour that was endangering people and giving the city and university a bad image.
The university yesterday said it had no comment to make on Saturday's behaviour.
