Intensive fire drills for Scott Base staff

New staff bound for the Antarctic practise the emergency skills they will need at Scott Base. Picture / John McCombe

Fire is the great enemy of people working in Antarctica.

People travelling from Christchurch to work at Antarctica's Scott Base for the summer season are being put through a week-long fire training course.

A burning helicopter and aeroplane fuselage are used in firefighting simulations supervised by the Fire Service.

"One of the biggest risks to all of us down there is fire because there is not free, fresh running water as there is back on the mainland," says Antarctica New Zealand spokeswoman Emma Reid.

"So it's important that everyone knows how to put out a fire - on quite a large scale, potentially.

"If something happened, a fire could take hold pretty quickly because Antarctica is incredibly dry ... you don't have those high levels of moisture in the air.

"We do have huge reserves of water there strictly for firefighting. So obviously we are not running on empty all of the time."

The first flights transporting the new teams to Scott Base leave on Tuesday to replace existing staff.