About 150 properties have been evacuated in the Tasman District as a fire rages out of control near Nelson. The blaze has been declared a Civil Defence emergency.
Georgina Pahl counts her family one of the lucky ones.
She and her husband Grant and 11-year-old daughter were evacuated from their home, which is at their nursery business in Malling Rd, about 700m southwest of Moutere Highway.
The Tasman District fire was about 2km from their property when theyleft at about 11.45 last night.
Georgina Pahl saw the glow of the Tasman district fire 2km away as she and her family evacuated their home. Photo / Supplied.
"As far as we know we are unaffected at this stage but we are unable to go and check.
"There's people in far worse situations. There's people further up the road from us. I'm aware from verbal reports from others there are definitely people we know who have lost their houses and people up Redwood Valley have got a lot more to deal with than us.
"We have got away lightly at this point in time and there's a lot of people that still don't know what's happening."
The Pahl family evacuated their home at their plant nursery, marked with a red pin, at about 11.45 last night when the fire was about 2km away. Map / Google
Pahl saw the glow of the fire late last night as she and her family evacuated their home under instruction from officials.
"We were watching it quite closely last night. We were evacuated at about quarter to 12. We have moved into town [Nelson] with family at the moment.
"We had heard from neighbours that the police had been up evacuating them. And then the rural fire people came around and let us know we needed to go, police about 10 minutes later.
"We had already organised ourselves. We had packed what was important and threw it in the car and hooked up the caravan and off we went.
"The fire was on the back of Eves Valley hill so we couldn't see the flames.
"We could see the glow. It was a couple of kilometres in a straight line from where we [were].
"It's pretty overcast at the moment. I believe there's been light rain out there this morning and the winds have certainly dropped."
Guests and visitors at the Nelson Sun Club north of Pigeon Valley were evacuated about 5.45am, camp host Bronwyn Gentry said.
"We could see the glow, and the occasional flames over the hills. It was a bit scary when they came knocking in the early hours, telling us we needed to evacuate."
All 21 people staying at the naturist camp evacuated to a safe area further up the valley.
They were allowed to return about midday Wednesday.
"The fire seems to have lessened where we are. We can still hear helicopters going back and forth though."
