Authorities meet about water supply after Port Hills fire

City council and Fire and Emergency staff have met to discuss water supplies for the first time following the Port Hills fire.

Authorities have met to discuss the city's water supply network for the first time since February's devastating Port Hills fire.

City council reticulation and maintenance manager Rob Meek said the city council's reticulation team and fire and emergency authorities met regularly to discuss the network.

However, this was the first meeting since the Port Hills fire and the amalgamation of the New Zealand Fire Service and the National Rural Fire Authority, he said.

"After the Port Hills fires, staff felt it was a good opportunity to catch up with the fire and emergency team to talk about our water supply network and reservoirs along the Port Hills and Christchurch in general and with regard to rural firefighting."

He said the senior fire risk management officer and three other members of the fire and emergency operational team were present.

They spoke about the various chains of reservoirs on the Port Hills, including the flat and up the hills from Westmorland to Taylors Mistake, he said.

"The various water supply pressure zones in Christchurch were also discussed, as were reservoir sizes along the various chains."

He said staff gave fire and emergency authorities the water supply schematic plans of the pump stations and reservoirs showing how they link to each other, their elevations and sizes, and pressure zone maps showing where pump stations were.

"Fire and emergency already has access to the Christchurch water supply network geographic information system."

Mr Meek said there were no gaps in the water supply system and they would continue to meet as they had in the past.

The two Port Hills fires started on February 13 and later merged into one, burning more than 1600ha of land and destroying nine homes. Pilot Steve Askin was killed when his helicopter crashed near Sugar Loaf on February 14.

Rural principal fire officer for Christchurch and Selwyn, Darrin Woods, said he helped organise the meeting but did not attend.

He said it was more about highlighting areas where "there could be some limitations" for water supply.