Port Hills fire: Firefighters maintain perimeter, state of emergency continues

A view of the fire scene as smoke continues to smoulder. A large fire has broken out in Chritchurch’s Port Hills causing mass evacuations. 17 February 2024 New Zealand Herald Photograph by Joe Allison

Sixteen crews and seven helicopters have worked to largely contain the Christchurch Port Hills fire, though it is too early to call it completely extinguished.

Pockets of smoke continued to billow from the charred hills on Saturday afternoon. The fire is now largely relegated to forestry skid sites, as crews worked from land and air.

One relieved business owner said he would “chuck a couple of cases of beers” to the fire fighters for doing such a good job in containing the fire.

Fire and Emergency Incident Commander Steve Kennedy said the focus of today’s operations was to strengthen the perimeters of the fire.

“We’ve got it contained within our perimeter, but we’ve still got a lot of work to do before we can say it’s out,” he said.

Fire and Emergency Incident Commander Steve Kennedy speaks to the media. A large fire has broken out in Chritchurch’s Port Hills causing mass evacuations. 17 February 2024 New Zealand Herald Photograph by Joe Allison

Kennedy said the remaining hotspots were around “skid sites” in the forestry, meaning areas where logs are processed.

“We’re putting a lot of resources into those at the moment to try and get those extinguished.”

The sites would require heavy machinery machinery to be dug out which would then be allowed to burn out before being extinguished by crews, he said.

Fenz would be using drones tonight to map the fire ground and help identify any hotspots for fire crews to work on tomorrow, he said.

A Thank You Firefighters sign is seen on Dyers Pass Road. A large fire has broken out in Christchurch's Port Hills causing mass evacuations. 17 February 2024 New Zealand Herald Photograph by Joe Allison

Crews would be working to achieve as much as possible this afternoon, as a weather change was expected tomorrow morning.

Christchurch City Council Local Controller Neville Reilly said the state of emergency declared last Wednesday night was still in place, and would continue until further notice.

Council had activated an the Emergency Operations Centre, there prime role being to support the people that have been impacted by the fire, he said.

“We’ve been looking after those who are evacuated from their homes and supporting them as much as possible.”

Helicopters prepare to take on day four. A large fire has broken out in Chritchurch’s Port Hills causing mass evacuations. 17 February 2024 New Zealand Herald Photograph by Joe Allison

Residents within the area were allowed to return to their homes yesterday evening, he said, though council still had the power to remove people from there homes if necessary under the state of emergency.

“It’s the last thing we want to do, of course.”

Road closures of the affected areas remained in place, though they would be reconsidered on a daily basis, he said.

The council’s decision to close park tracks in the area was for the safety of the public, as well as their usage by firefighters, he said.

“There are plenty of other tracks around, and we know how popular those tracks are with the public - but as soon as it is possible to reopen, they will be.”

Police incident controller Ash Tabb. A large fire has broken out in Christchurch's Port Hills causing mass evacuations. 17 February 2024 New Zealand Herald Photograph by Joe Allison

Police incident controller Ash Tabb said police priorities were evacuations if required, and plans were in place to evacuate people in a hurry if needed.

They are also providing reassurance patrols to the affected community and the wider community in Christchurch.

Chair of Christchurch Adventure Park Maurice Noone said despite fears on Wednesday afternoon as the fire spread through the park, and visions of 2017′s fire, the park appeared to have escaped the worst of the damage.

The chairlift infrastructure, the zip lines, the village, and the vast majority of the park’s trails appeared to have missed the brunt of the fire, he said.

Maurice Noone chairman of Christchurch Adventure Park speaks to media. A large fire has broken out in Chritchurch’s Port Hills causing mass evacuations. 17 February 2024 New Zealand Herald Photograph by Joe Allison

He said the park would now have to go through the process of testing, recalibrating, and certifying all of its infrastructure upon being allowed to re-enter the site.

“Until that’s done, we won’t we can’t be certain. But visually at this stage, things are looking considerably better than we first feared,” he said.

“There’s almost a sense of disbelief that here we are seven years down the track, that this could happen again.”

He was unsure when the park would reopen, though was optimistic it could be within the next month or two should its infrastructure be approved and certified. After the 2017 fire, the park was closed for about 10 months.

Sign of the Kiwi owner Eric Devos is shutting down his cafe until recreational tracks in the area reopen. A large fire has broken out in Chritchurch’s Port Hills causing mass evacuations. 17 February 2024 New Zealand Herald Photograph by Joe Allison

Port Hills café Sign of the Kiwi reopened this morning after being closed for two days due to the fire, though its owner Eric Devos decided he would be closing at lunchtime until Tuesday due to the trail closures leading to a lack of customers.

“It’s fine, man. In the bigger scheme, it’s not a big deal for us, we’re just going to close for a few days. Look what’s happening in the world, look at the Middle East and all the problems around the world. I mean, suddenly, three, four days of trade lost, it’s not a big deal for us. We’ll be fine,” he said.

“I think the boys, the firefighters and the crew on the ground were pretty awesome, so I’m gonna go and chuck a couple of cases of beers to the ANZAC fire station today because they’ve done a good job.”

Ben Tomsett is a Multimedia Journalist for the New Zealand Herald, based in Dunedin.