Fire rips through woolshed, trees blaze

The fire service damps down a pine plantation where a 250sq m fire raged at Crownthorpe, east of Hastings, yesterday afternoon. Photo / Duncan Brown

A woolshed near Dannevirke was destroyed as firefighters battled a pine plantation blaze in a seasonal hotspot for an hour yesterday.

Temperatures had soared above 30C in Hawke's Bay.

Dannevirke Volunteer Fire Brigade chief Peter Sinclair said he understood the woolshed blaze on a property in the now mainly dairying area of Top Grass Rd, just outside Dannevirke, was reported at 1.07pm.

But the structure was "completely gone" by the time two crews arrived soon afterwards, he said.

The firefighters spent more than an hour at the scene ensuring the fire was extinguished.

Rural firefighters from Matapiro were joined by two fire service crews and four urban fire authority tankers to fight the plantation fire further north, after it was reported on a property at Matapiro Rd, Crownthorpe, just before 2pm.

The fire in the 250sq m pine plantation started in a tree-filled gully and spread to grass in a paddock.

Hastings District Council's deputy principal fire officer, Gordon Foster, said getting it under control had taken time.

"It was lucky the Matapiro guys got there as quickly as they could, because everyone else had to come from town," he said.

The cause of the blaze was unclear and would be subject to an investigation.

But Mr Foster said a fire ban enforced by the council since last month had helped reduce the number of rural fire call-outs.

"Since we put the fire restrictions on in late December we haven't had a great amount of [scrub fires]."

Temperatures in Wairoa and Waipukurau soared beyond 31C yesterday and it was estimated to be at least that hot in the Matapiro area, with the peak in Napier and Hastings about 28C.

Hot weather is expected to continue this week, although temperatures aren't expected to reach the 2012 January highs, which included a January 10 temperature of 35.2C in Wairoa.

Meanwhile, Dannevirke shearer Ringa Paewai will have to brave possibly hotter temperatures as he and four others tackle a world lambshearing record in a remote woolshed south of the King Country township of Pio Pio today.

An official said it was 32C in the Puketititi woolshed about 5pm yesterday as judges attended a wool-weigh to confirm the lambs met record requirements. It is tipped to be hotter today as the shearers try to get through more than 2638 lambs in eight hours.