North Waikato scrub fire: Crews to monitor Meremere fire over Labour Weekend

Fire and Emergency NZ crews will continue to monitor the Whangamarino wetland fire through the long weekend.

Incident controller Mark Tinworth said the fire has now been under control for two full days with no significant flareups.

“There will still be some fire activity at the site for the foreseeable future.

“People may still see smoke in the area due to the nature of where this fire is burning underground. People should not be alarmed by this.”

Friday’s operations saw helicopters and ground crews dampening down the 16 hotspots identified by drones overnight.

“A big thank you to our crews and helicopter pilots who will be working hard again today as we continue efforts to extinguish this fire,” Tinworth said.

The Te Kauwhata Fire Brigade thanked the local community for its support since Monday.

“As the smoke disperses ... we would like to take this opportunity to say thank you. Thank you for your kind words, thoughts, messages, baking and offers of support.

“We have been truly humbled during the last five days and it is these acts of kindness that make what we do worthwhile.”

The scrub fire off Island Block Rd on Wednesday morning. Photo / Fire and Emergency NZ

Footage shows when fire got ‘out of control’

A resident called Fire and Emergency NZ (Fenz) about the blaze at 1.14pm on Monday, took a video of it at 1.20pm as it progressed, and their last video was at 1.43pm when it had “gotten out of control”.

Fenz was alerted to the scene at 1.15pm on Monday.

“I have a video as it started to get out of control, as well as videos of it as it progressively burned,” the resident said.

Smoke moves across Coromandel

Garry Towler, Thames Coromandel District Council civil defence controller, told radio station CFM that winds changing direction had caused smoke density to increase in Thames on Wednesday.

Towler said the smoke was moving up and across the Coromandel and advised residents to close windows and doors.

Tinworth said the fire had not grown significantly in size.

He said Fenz crews’ “solid progress” fighting the fire was largely thanks to the help of helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft.

The fire has burned through more than 1000ha of scrub and wetland since Monday in the Island Block area. Photo / Malisha Kumar

“The aircraft have been doing great work to slow the spread of the fire while the ground crews have been getting that containment line in so we can get this fire stopped in its tracks,” Tinworth said.

“It’s hard work for our crews and I want to thank them for all their efforts throughout the day.”

Tinworth said firefighters were aware there was “some anxiety” in the community about the fire and the large amount of smoke in the area.

“I just want to reassure people that we have your safety as our top priority.”

The fire burned close to Whangamarino Wetland.

On Wednesday, Fenz called on members of the public not to fly drones anywhere near the 15km-wide fire ground near Meremere.

The call came after a drone sighting in the area of the fire forced Fenz to halt all air operations for a short time.

Tinworth said this was standard practice as drones were a serious threat to aircraft.

“A mid-air collision between a drone and a helicopter could have fatal consequences,” he said.

“Members of the public must not fly drones anywhere near the fire ground.

“This impacted our ability to fight this fire as air operations have been our main avenue for suppression of the fire.”

Tinworth said the drone was quickly grounded and air operations were able to resume after a break of about 10 minutes.

Malisha Kumar is a multimedia journalist based in Hamilton. She joined the Waikato Herald in 2023 after working for Radio 1XX in Whakatāne.

Maryana Garcia is a Hamilton-based reporter covering breaking news in Waikato. She previously wrote for the Rotorua Daily Post and Bay of Plenty Times.