KEY POINTS:
Children hauled hoses for fire crews at a spectacular Hastings blaze yesterday, showing up the adult sightseers whose cars blocked the water supply.
A big pile of tyres on rural land had caught fire and a nearby pine forest was threatened when the blaze spread in two directions.
Hastings Fire Service station officer Glenn Drew said local children jumped in to help.
"It's more your resources are stretched and so you start dragging a hose and it's a small community out there ... so of course kids from miles around are there, and the adults, so if they see you struggling with a hose they'll jump in and give a hand.
"We don't want to tell them off or anything, but we're aware that we're exposed through health and safety if any of them hurt themselves, so we don't encourage it."
Mr Drew said at one stage firefighting was hampered when the tankers getting refills from a hydrant 4km away were disrupted by sightseers.
"The traffic was blocked to the point where it was making it difficult to get their reload."
Fire police were called, and they blocked off the road for about 30 minutes to allow the tankers through.
It appeared the blaze had started from a small rubbish fire, which spread into nearby blackberry bushes and grasses, Mr Drew said.
"Once the tyres go it's a huge fuel source - so plenty of pluming black smoke and deep-red flames."
The fire, in pile of tyres 20 metres by 20 metres that were stacked high, had spread 200 metres in two directions and was "well and truly involved", threatening a nearby pine forest, he said.
Three tankers, two Fire Service appliances and two rural fire trucks attended the blaze, which was almost out by 5.30pm. None of the 14 firefighters involved in the two-hour effort was injured. Rural firefighters stayed on to prevent a flare-up of the flames.
A nearby farm house was not threatened because the fire was about 50 metres away and the wind was blowing away from it.
- NZPA
