A new approach to the wildfires that plague the Far North every summer is already paying off, with firefighting costs slashed from more than $3 million to less than $400,000 a year.
The new tack involves working with the community to prevent fires instead of just putting them out, and combining the competing groups responsible for rural fires into a single, independent authority.
In Northland urban and house fires are fought by the volunteer brigades of the NZ Fire Service, while scrub and forest fires used to be fought by council-run rural fire parties, the Department of Conservation or forestry companies, depending on where the fire broke out. That led to duplication and confusion.
The Far North is only the second district in New Zealand, after Southland, to merge those different fire forces into a new, independent body.