Council to remove trees scorched during Whangārei fire

Almost all native regenerating trees destroyed by a fire on Abbey Caves Rd will be removed due to safety reasons. Photo / Supplied

The Whangārei District Council will due to safety reasons remove almost all native regenerating trees destroyed by a suspicious fire about two weeks ago.

Firefighters early this week withdrew from the Abbey Caves Rd site after giving the all clear when a drone with infrared imaging, deployed by Fire and Emergency New Zealand on Tuesday, found no hot spots.

The mountain bike tracks that form part of the area ravaged by the fire are open after members of the Whangārei Mountain Bike Club assessed the tracks on Wednesday.

Deputy principal rural fire officer Northland Rory Renwick said the fire site was handed back to WDC earlier this week with a recommendation that the area be checked for trees weakened by the blaze.

"They are fairly young trees and it's possible none have been weakened but it's worth checking. Recent rain has helped a little bit but it takes a lot of rain to penetrate deep-seated burning."

The fire was first reported at 4.20pm on November 2 and crews from Whangārei, Onerahi, Kamo and Hikurangi with the help of four helicopters brought the fire under control.

A vehicle was seen leaving the area when the fire was noticed.

WDC parks and recreation technical officer Stuart Jackson said the fire has destroyed almost all the native regenerating vegetation, as well as a lot of trees that would need to be removed for safety reasons.

That work was likely to be carried out before Christmas, he said.

The site is part of the Parihaka Reserve and was formerly planted with commercial pine trees that were all harvested about 10 years ago.

Jackson said WDC's management plan was to allow native trees to naturally regenerate which was beginning to happen with punga, pittosporum, manuka and totara starting to emerge through the weed species.

"The fire is a real setback and it will take another 10 years for the regeneration to reach the same point of redevelopment in this area. Thankfully, because of the fast actions of the fire service, the burnt area is relatively small at around 3.5ha."

Within the burnt area, he said some wilding pine trees — weeds, not commercial crops that have been planted for forestry but have self-seeded into an area — have been established.

Jackson said WDC has a programme to remove wilding pines from within the reserve and would now take the opportunity of the fire to remove the scorched trees, which were likely to die as a result of the heat anyway.

He said scorched native trees may need to be felled too, although these were generally much smaller.

Bike tracks may need to be closed while tree felling takes place.

Anyone with any information about the fire should call Rory Renwick on 021 0200 7763.