Scrub Fire Threatened Homes, Reserve

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31598, 8 February 1968, Page 1

Scrub Fire Threatened Homes, Reserve

(New Zealand Press Association)

WHANGAREI, February 7. A scrub fire covering hundreds of acres threatened homes and the scenic area of Parahaki, near Whangarei, this evening. At one time the blaze had a frontage of one mile and a half.

By 9 p.m. the fire was considered to be under control.

After 7 p.m. a dying wind, concentrated bulldozer activity and the efforts of hundreds of men, all contributed to ending the blaze.

Parahaki is a scenic reserve on a hill overlooking Whangarei; it is topped by Whangarei’s war memorial a tower.

During the afternoon a

slight wind change sent the fire back over ground it had already burnt through. One family was ordered to leave its home, the highest on Parahaki. Mr and Mrs J. D. Lovatt and their three children were satisfied shortly before 4 p.m. that the fire was not going to endanger their home, but 10 minutes later a wind change brought the flames roaring over a ridge and down towards their tennis court.

Mr Lovatt said that prompt action by firemen and volunteer helpers stopped the flames at the tennis court, only 25 yards from their home.

Engines from Whangarei and Portland brigades, a fourman unit with portable pumps from the New Zealand Forest Service at Glenbervie, all

available manpower from Whangarei City and County Councils, and water tankers from the two local bodies and the Mid-Northern Dairy Company fought the blaze. The fire began about 3 p.m. when sparks from an authorised burn-off jumped a chain of cleared land, a wide road and another section of cleared land to fire scrub beside the Whangarei City Council’s 640-acre Parahaki pine forest.