Firefighters tame forest fire

SCORCHED EARTH: The initial site of a fire that erupted on Wednesday at Erindale Forest on the Masterton-Castlepoint Rd at the Big Saddle near Castlepoint before fire crews were forced to flee the scene. PHOTO/ANDERS CROFOOT

Firefighters yesterday tamed a forest fire near Castlepoint that gales had fanned to an inferno the previous night.

Grant Davies, deputy principal rural fire officer for Wairarapa, said the blaze in the 800ha Erindale Forest had spread throughout the evening on Wednesday and by yesterday afternoon had consumed about 30 hectares of mostly felled pine.

A logging crew of nine workers had been working at the site on Wednesday morning when the exhaust from a chainsaw sparked the initial blaze in a mat of pine needles.

Helicopters and up to 40 firefighters from Castlepoint, Tinui, Masterton, Carterton and Wellington were scrambled to the scene although ground crews were withdrawn in the face of mounting winds.

"When we first got there the fire was only small but it just blew out down a big steep hill," Mr Davies said.

"The wind was blowing 100k at one point and just fanned it and added to the fire."

The ground crews were forced back on Wednesday, Mr Davies said, because of the dangers posed by the terrain, fierce winds and blinding palls of smoke.

"I wasn't willing to put any people in there then. It was very steep country and we just had to pull back to a safe point.

"Midnight Wednesday they had to get the logging crew to shift their machinery because the fire grew far bigger than we anticipated."

He said the fire eventually ravaged about five hectares of standing trees but had lost its ferocity by morning after "the rains came in and it got quite wet out there for an hour or two" and the winds died down.

He said helicopters started battling the blaze with monsoon buckets soon after dawn yesterday and a ground crew of 30 people, made up of rural fire crews, and DOC and forestry workers continued to fight the fire during the day.

Mr Davies said the helicopters had been filling their monsoon buckets with water from nearby farm ponds and a gang of 10 forestry workers had monitored the fire throughout Wednesday night.

"They did what they could round the edges overnight but couldn't go down in to the main part of the fire - it was too dangerous," he said. "It was a good save and the helicopters did a great job. They were there at first light, identified all the problem areas, and attacked it. We got on top of it after that and contained it. When it was racing though, I thought we were going to be there for a week."