Key points:
- Ground and air crews still fighting to control Port Hills blaze
- Change in wind could work against firefighters this afternoon
- No houses lost across 12km fire zone
- State of emergency remains in place
- Christchurch’s Adventure Park has been affected, but how badly is yet to be confirmed.
- Police are urging “disaster tourists” to stay away from the scene, as they are affecting not only EMS staff accessing the fire site but also residents getting in and out.
- How did the Port Hills fire start? An investigation into the cause of the fire has begun, and Fire and Emergency has asked the public to get in contact with any photos or videos of the Port Hills taken between 1.45pm and 2.45pm yesterday.
Fire crews resumed their battle against the blaze this morning with 23 appliances, supported by 13 helicopters and two fixed-wing aircraft, tackling it from the ground and air.
The main fire is now centred around Summit Rd with 80 properties evacuated.
Christchurch Adventure Park Limited director John McVicar told the Herald the fire had impacted the park.
“To what extent I don’t know at this time,” he said. ”We’re completely devastated by it, especially after it’s only been a few years since the last one. We don’t have enough information really to have a good assessment of what’s happened. Until we do we will be able to assess.
“It’s really just left up to Fire and Emergency to deal with it the way they do.”
A regular user of the park told the Herald it was “so gutting” to see fire in the park just as the trees were coming back after the 2017 fire.
The Adventure Park was due to host a major event in a fortnight with the Crankworx Summer Series mountain biking event from March 1 to March 3.
Last year the Christchurch Adventure Park lost an appeal after being ordered to pay $12 million in damages to homeowners following the Port Hills fires in 2017.
The fire, which was lit by an arsonist near the boundary of the Christchurch Adventure Park (CAP), burned through nearly 2000 hectares of forestry, 11 homes and caused a significant amount of property damage for dozens of homeowners.
In 2021, High Court Justice David Gendall ruled that while CAP, owned and operated by Leisure Investments NZ Limited Partnership, didn’t start the blaze, it was liable for the spread of the fire and ordered the company to pay the owners of 80 damaged homes a total of $12m.
In the High Court decision, Justice Gendall found “a reasonable operator” would have appreciated plastic on the chairlift could melt and spread the fire and would have removed the chairs from the rope. CAP also failed to remove pine slash from under the chairlift - in breach of the park’s fire safety management plan - and didn’t take away highly flammable mats from around the chairlift, Justice Gendall found.
Legal counsel for the park challenged the findings, saying: “What happened was an entirely unforeseen and unprecedented event”. But the Court of Appeal dismissed the suit because the park owners knew most of the chairlift ran through pine forests, next to housing, and knew there was a possibility the fire could spread there.
'Disaster tourists' slammed
Police are urging “disaster tourists” to stay away from the fire.
Fire crews resumed their battle against the blaze this morning with 23 appliances, supported by 13 helicopters and two fixed-wing aircraft, tackling it from the ground and air.
The main fire is now centred around Summit Rd with 80 properties having been evacuated.
Fire and Emergency’s Brad Mosby said there have been no significant outbreaks overnight and the fire has burnt through 630 HA with a 12km perimeter. No properties have been lost.
“Our approach today will be to hit the fire hard,” Mosby said.
But Police manager Ash Tabb said disaster tourists were becoming an issue for those fighting the fire, as they keep blocking roads and stopping equipment coming in.
People wanting to take a look at the fire were also stopping residents from coming in and out.
“We just need people out of the way.”
These “tourists” are affecting not only EMS staff accessing the fire site but also residents getting in and out at what was already a very stressful time.
Tabb said the behaviour is driven by people “wanting to get shots on their social media accounts”.
Civil Defence Minister Mark Mitchell, in Christchurch, joined the plea for people to stay away and stop interfering.
“Allow FENZ and police to do their job.”
By Sam Sherwood
