Man's excitement during farm burn-off may have led to death

Denis Hazlett was an old boy of Waihi Preparatory School and appeared in a Youtube video for the school in 2012.

An elderly man may have died after getting "excited" by big flames during a farm burn-off in rural Canterbury last year, a coroner has heard.

Denis Luke Hazlett, 71, of Ohoka, died while helping his friend James Cassidy undertake a burn-off on Mr Cassidy's Hurunui property last October.

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Mr Hazlett had offered his help with the burn-off, and was "insistent" on helping, even when Mr Cassidy said he had enough people to carry it out, coroner CJ Devonport heard.

Despite an initially gusty start to the day, conditions improved and Mr Cassidy and his son Ben decided to go ahead with the burn. Shearer Alan McKnight completed the team.

Mr McKnight, a former Rural Fire Service member described as experienced in burn-offs, took the more difficult line, while Mr Hazlett was given a straight line to burn off.

He was to go along a track and back-burn about 5m in, coming out at a gate at the far end.

After a while, Mr Cassidy drove up to the gate and looked down the valley to where Mr Hazlett was supposed to be, but could not see him. Pulling out his binoculars, he found him walking about 20m above the creek bed -- "miles off the track where he was supposed to be", Mr Cassidy told the inquest into his death.

He tried to call him on a hand-held radio but it wasn't working. He then moved closer to Mr Hazlett to get his attention, and yelled to him.

Mr Hazlett said he had a quarter of a tank of fuel left, and intended to use it up.

Mr Cassidy described looking over two minutes later and no longer being able to see his long-time friend.

"I started panicking. I could see smoke where he had been, but not Denis," he told the inquest.

He ran to get Mr McKnight, and they drove back to where he had last seen Mr Hazlett. They walked down the creek bed to where he had last been.

"I could see the spots where Denis had been lighting the fires as he was walking along," he said.

"I looked up the hill and saw Denis then. He was still on fire, but was obviously dead."

Mr McKnight told police he believed the excitement of the burn-off had caught a grip of Mr Hazlett -- something he'd seen many times before.

"I do think the adventure and excitement of seeing the big flames coming up kept him going that wee bit further to get a wee bit more of the big flames," Mr McKnight said.

He added: "In all the years I've been doing fires, I've seen many people react with excitement with how fires behave, and that includes people in the Rural Fire Service."

A postmortem examination found Mr Hazlett's body was "severely incinerated", and ruled he died from breathing in smoke and fumes.

Coroner Devonport ruled Mr Hazlett died on October 15, 2014, from the effects of fire when he became entrapped while undertaking a burn-off.

"Mr Hazlett was likely overcome quickly by smoke inhalation, and existing ischaemic heart disease [coronary heart disease] likely contributed to him being quickly incapacitated and unable to escape," he said.