Photo recall: Scorching soil akin to the fires of hell

The floods have abated but now parts of Australia are in the grips of its usual summer foe - bushfires. In parts of New Zealand, fire danger lurks in the earth beneath our feet. Photo / Ross Land

It sounds like hell - smouldering holes that swallow the ground leaving hollow pits of ash and smoke.

In 1979, a fire burned three-quarters of Rufus and Lola Tye's 80ha property at Kaihere, Waikato. The blaze destroyed fences and water pipes, causing thousands of dollars of damage and killing 16 heifers.

Lola, now 96 and living in Paeroa, says peat fires commonly burned all summer on the Hauraki Plains. As they burned through the sub-soil they created gaping holes in the earth.

"I remember stepping into one and it was almost waist deep," she says.

Lola and her husband Rufus, who passed away several years ago, both grew up on the Hauraki Plains and were accustomed to peat fires.

"It was just something you endured," she says.

The Tyes lived on a farm near Paeroa and used the Kaihere property as a run-off for cows they were not milking. With peat fires smouldering it was difficult to keep cattle out of harm's way during the hot summer.

"Sometimes they would wander into the burning area and find themselves hemmed in and if they tried to walk out their hooves would burn," says Lola.

Dry conditions and strong winds contributed to the ferocity of the fire.

It took 40 men three days to bring under control, using six helicopters with monsoon buckets. The firefighters dug ditches around the blaze and filled them with water.

Lola says rain was often the only thing that would extinguish a peat fire completely because the fires would keep smouldering beneath the earth.

"It just burns and burns," she says.