Same old story grates already with fire chief

The Far North's dry season has barely started, but already the district's principal rural fire officer has had enough of people lighting fires without giving any thought to the weather conditions.

Firefighters responded to a series of scrub, grass and forest fires over the weekend, most of them caused by people burning rubbish, strong winds doing the rest.

The biggest blaze was at Mitimiti, where flames swept over 10ha of scrub on Sunday afternoon before they could be doused by helicopters using monsoon buckets. That fire started next to a house, Myles Taylor saying it was fortunate that the wind drove the flames away from the settlement.

Three helicopters fought the blaze for five hours, backed up by ground crews from Kohukohu, Ahipara and Kaitaia. Firefighters remained overnight, and a Kaikohe forestry crew dampened down hot spots on Monday.

The cause of the fire was still being investigated on Tuesday, but it appeared that the wind had caught someone burning rubbish by surprise.

"The wind is getting everybody. People need to pay attention to what the wind's doing," Mr Taylor said.

"We're getting intolerant of people disregarding weather conditions. We're just over it. If people are going to do it, they can expect the bill."

Just as the Mitimiti fire was brought under control a suspicious blaze broke out in pine forest on Tokawhero Road at Awarua, south of Kaikohe, at about 7pm. Two helicopters were called out, along with two Kaikohe appliances. One crew stayed on overnight with an infrared camera while another cut a fire break around the burnt area on Monday yesterday morning.

A day earlier a resident of Tirohanga Road, near Kawakawa, lit a small pile of rubbish and sawdust. When he went into town wind spread the fire into of kikuyu. The Paihia Fire Brigade was called away from an open day at the town's new station, supported by rural firefighters from Kaikohe, to deal with that incident.

The Rural Fire Authority is vowing to take a hard line against fire-starters by billing them the full firefighting costs, which can run into tens of thousands of dollars.