Crews forced to flee fierce blaze

DANGER: A forest fire rages at Big Saddle, Castlepoint, as helicopters with monsoon buckets hover overhead. INSET: Castlepoint rural fire chief Anders Crofoot (in orange), with a firefighting party.

Howling winds and blinding smoke forced about 40 firefighters from the scene of a blaze that erupted in the midst of an 800-hectare forest near Castlepoint yesterday.

Castlepoint Rural Fire Party chief Anders Crofoot said two helicopters with monsoon buckets and Tinui, Castlepoint, Masterton, Carterton and Wellington firefighters were scrambled to the blaze, which broke out at the Erindale Forest in an area known as the Big Saddle, just before noon.

He said crews on the ground had been ordered to fall back as winds mounted and the palls of smoke grew thicker. The Carterton water tanker was on site and a command post vehicle from Wellington was stationed at the roadside on the Masterton-Castlepoint road, while the helicopters continued to dump water on to the fire.

"They had helicopters in there and we were pulled back because there wasn't anything we could do. It was too smoky in there and too dangerous," Mr Crofoot said.

By mid-afternoon the fire involved about 4ha of felled and standing pine trees and the firefighting crews were waiting for the smoke hazard and winds of up to 80km/h to abate before renewing their battle against the blaze.

A forestry worker, who declined to be named, said a "howling" wind had fanned the initial blaze, igniting a secondary fire about 1km away and causing smoke "so thick, you can't actually see anything".

The man said a younger worker had been felling trees when the exhaust from his chainsaw ignited a nearby mat of dry pine needles soon after 11am.

"We were tree felling by slash and the fire caught in the pine needles. We went up to put it out but it was too late. The boy on the chainsaw used an extinguisher and we used another four, but the wind was too much and it just took off," he said.

"When it blows out here, it fair blows, especially on a face that's open, like where they're having trouble with the fire now. As they put one out, embers get blown away and more are starting. There was only the one fire to start with, now there's four or five."

The man said all nine workers escaped injury.

A small fleet of heavy machines were retrieved from near the seat of the original blaze and moved to safety as well.

"Everything of ours is all good. Now it's just up to the firefighters and how they go."

The worker said the Erindale Forest was privately owned and comprised about 800ha of mature pines that would be ready for milling throughout the coming decade.

MetService meteorologist Ciaran Doolin said winds at Castlepoint had been recorded at an average speed of about 80km/h and were gusting to over 100km/h.

Severe gales were expected to persist, he said, until a weak front with a strong north-westerly flow passed through the region overnight, after which the high winds were expected to "die down considerably".