The National Park Volunteer Fire Brigade pictured after a long day helping to bring the Tongariro blaze under control. Photo / Fire and Emergency New Zealand
National Park fire chief Marilla Swift says there was no way the four firefighters from her brigade who were first to face the blaze in Tongariro could have foreseen the devastation that would unravel.
“You see it when it’s small and you can’t imagine that within just a couple of hours, it’s going to be like Armageddon almost and the whole country is coming your way.”
Swift was away camping but later rushed home after the call came in on Saturday afternoon about a fire on State Highway 47 near the park’s western edge.
A vegetation fire was unusual for the National Park brigade. It had been more than a year since the team had to battle any significant fires of that kind.
Swift said the area wasn’t usually dry enough for fires to go big and move this fast.
Four National Park volunteer firefighters responded quickly but the blaze was already bigger than a football pitch and moving fast when they arrived.
“The fire conditions were such that it was just blowing it away at speed,” Swift said.
“It was really clear from the moment it started that it was out of control.”
She praised her crew for immediately requesting helicopters and back-up water tankers.
“They could see they just needed to get on to it as fast as they could ... they just did the best they could with the water they had.”
Swift said with four people, they only really could attack one flank of the fire.
Their efforts soon tore through the 2000 litres of water on board their fire truck.
Swift said the urban brigade was usually called out to a reticulated area so the crew could plug into a hydrant to get more water onto the truck.
“But at a rural job, it’s not like that.”
The 15-minute wait for back-up felt like an eternity to the crew.
When a second truck arrived, those firefighters immediately hit the right-hand side of the blaze.
But it continued to burn out of control, quickly consuming hundreds of hectares, then thousands.
“It is a sinking feeling,” Swift said, when asked how a firefighter felt knowing they were trying everything, but the flames continued to spread.
“The weight of that sits on us.”
The national park was the brigade’s backyard. The crews knew it well – its wildlife and its deep connection and meaning to its tangata whenua.
“These are places that we walk and we adventure all the time,” Swift said.
“You’re thinking is it going to be all right? Is it going to be safe? Because things like that can go in a second, but they don’t get replaced overnight.”
A firefighter spoke to Swift about seeing the birds flee the fire and how they would return to a scorched forest.
“The pain of knowing that’s their home and we can’t stop it ... It is heartbreaking,” Swift said.
On Sunday, the fire chief got a call at 8am asking if her crew was good to go again, having finished at the fire ground at 3.30am that same morning.
“I was like, yeah, they’re keen to go.”
The crew spent 13 hours at the airstrip filling the five fixed-wing aircraft with water. The planes had worked alongside 12 helicopters to attack the fire from the air.
Swift said two pumps pulled water from a stream into a portable dam that could hold 25,000 litres. Water from the dam was pumped into the fire truck then run down two hoses used for the aircraft.
“It was actually really quite exciting work because the planes are coming in right on each other’s tails ... They’re touching down 10 or 20 seconds behind the next one at times.”
It would take a minute and half for the firefighters to run in under a plane, attach a hose, flick the water on and then fill the plane.
“It was a really hot, sunny day and every time the planes took off, they’d be kicking back the dirt and the draft and we’re smelling kerosene,” Swift said.
“But nobody wanted to go home ... we were all a team and this is our area.”
In view were the massive plumes of smoke billowing out of the park.
“You see it burning away and you’re thinking, ‘oh I hope we’re making a difference’,” Swift said.
“Then at night you see it glowing and you’re like, ‘oh, we did all that work today and look how big the glow is’.”
The firefighters had been running on adrenaline but as the blaze persisted, fatigue set in.
“You’d take a break and sit down and it was like, whoa. It really hits you how tired you are, especially if people only got a couple of hours’ sleep,” Swift said.
“But nobody wanted to go home, even though everyone was tired.”
The National Park crew had been heartened by the overwhelming messages of support from the community. People had even offered to drop off baking or had asked about joining the brigade.
“We felt so supported by the community,” Swift said.