Police ask residents to film fire watchers

Rural firefighter Shane Wind dampens down hot spots on Mt Parihaka. Picture / Dean Purcell

Police want Whangarei residents to use cameras and cellphones to film crowds who gather to watch suspicious fires in the city as it may help them to identify an arsonist.

At a public meeting last night, Whangarei area commander Inspector Paul Dimery said police were following strong leads into three arsons in the Whangarei Quarry Gardens.

A suspicious fire that forced an evacuation on Mt Parihaka on Monday night has not been linked to the previous blazes, although police have not yet ruled out a connection.

In the past few months there have been three fires at the Whangarei Quarry Gardens and four at Mt Parihaka.

Mr Dimery said police had been looking at patterns such as the times, dates and places of the Quarry Garden fires, as well as talking to known arsonists living in the region.

He commended the idea from one resident at the meeting to film the crowds that gathered to watch the fires, saying it might help police to identify the perpetrator.

Many residents at the meeting said the fires had left them afraid.

One woman called it a "terrifying" situation. She always found herself checking the foliage around her house, especially at night.

In Monday's fire, near Memorial Drive, the Whangarei rural fire service ordered 10 households be evacuated for about four hours, although the risk was minimal.

Resident Roger Brookes refused to budge, although his property was the closest to the blaze, which was on thick gorse about 75m away. Instead he got out his hose and dampened his section.

"I'm stubborn."

But as a precaution Mr Brookes retrieved his granddaughter's guinea pig from an old orchard house in the path of the fire.

He said the arsons were a worry and Monday's fire nearly got away as a southwesterly wind blew it towards a forest.

"The fire was so intense, it was flashing in the bush. The flames were awesome - about 4 to 5m high. They would catch the gorse and just go 'gawwummp'."

Helicopters used monsoon buckets filled from the nearby Hatea River.

"My youngest granddaughter who lives near there rang me and said, 'They are taking water from outside my house' and I was saying, 'Yes dear, they're dropping it outside mine' ."

Mr Brookes said the area needed fire breaks. "Potentially this could have been really bad."

Another resident, Richard Firth, said the last big fire in the area was four or five years ago and had been set by youngsters.

"Wherever you live there is some risk, we are surrounded by beauty so it pays ... all the neighbours are quite philosophical."

Natalie Cohen, 18, said real estate agents were showing potential buyers through her family home at the time of the fire. "They had to sort of make a joke of it."

Kevin Ihaka, principal rural fire officer, suspected the fire was deliberately lit because there were no other obvious causes.

There had been at least four fires on that stretch of road leading up to the Mt Parihaka summit in the past three months, and another on a walking track about 1km away just before Christmas, he said.

The last spate of arsons in the area was about a decade ago.

Mr Ihaka said Monday's fire had threatened valuable pine forest on the other side of the road, which was due for logging. It cost about $20,000 to put out.

The Fire Service was relying on the neighbours to be vigilant to try to get an eyewitness to the arsons, and wanted locals to report any suspicious activity.

It was possible the Mt Parihaka fires were linked to the Quarry fires and could be the work of a copycat.