Celebrations planned to commemorate 100-year anniversary of Raetihi Forest fire

Settlers saving what was left of their household goods after the flames had subsided at Raetihi. PHOTO / AUCKLAND LIBRARIES

This weekend will mark the 100-year anniversary of the devastating Raetihi fire, and there are big commemorations planned.

The fire burned for two days on March 18 and March 19 in 1918.

It devastated areas of forest and almost destroyed the townships of Raetihi and Ohakune.

Three people lost their lives in the fire when their farmhouse burned, 150 houses were lost and nine sawmills burned to the ground.

Spokesman for the organising committee Geoff Anderson said a team of people was hard at work organising the memorial day.

"The commemoration will start off at 12.30pm at the gate at the Raetihi cemetery. There will be a short service - a Ratana band is coming as well as part of it," Anderson said.

Then there will be an unveiling of a plaque that the children will then arrange flowers around.

"We've got to involve the kids to teach them about their history," Anderson said.

There will then be flowers put on the unmarked grave of the three who lost their lives in the fire.

That will be followed by a parade of fire engines and vintage cars which will travel from Ward St to the Waimarino Museum.

There will be unveilings of storyboards about the fire at the museum, as well as speeches and afternoon tea.

"It's always hard to gauge how many will come but we've had contact with people who had family around at the time of the fire so there will be 200 to 400 people maybe," Anderson said.

Ruapehu Mayor Don Cameron confirmed he will attend the commemorations.

"It was a massive event, one of the biggest fires we've had in New Zealand," Cameron said.

"There are plenty of stories of people who didn't have enough time and had to jump into creeks and rivers that boiled. So some of them got quite badly burned," Cameron said.

Cameron said one of the upsides of the fire was that it cleared some land for farming.

"One of the lessons learned from it was how easy it is for native bush to set fire, so DOC nowadays are very strict about where people can have campfires and things like that," Cameron said.

He was expecting a sizeable crowd and was aware of people coming from Whanganui.

The commemoration coincides with the Whanganui rodeo. The rodeo will be stop when the service commences so people attending the rodeo can come across to the service.

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