February 3, 2009

Mahia couple Colin and Raewyn Jane used wet sacks and buckets of water to beat down flames leaping toward their family home as a wind- fed fire ripped across a huge tract of the coast.
The Janes, who live with their three children in Kaiwaitau Rd, worked themselves to exhaustion before dialling 111 about 11pm on Sunday. They summoned water tankers to help control flames racing through dry grass in their back paddock toward pine trees near their house.
The fire, which began at nearby Opoutama on Sunday afternoon, sent 20-metre flames sweeping through a wetland, tinder-dry grass and pine plantations - destroying a house and seven other buildings in YMCA Rd. About 50 evacuated residents and holiday-makers spent the night at nearby Opoutama School. A YMCA Rd home, owned by Rata Sinclair, was saved by family members who stamped on the sparks and flying embers that threatened to ignite it.
By yesterday afternoon, the fire had burnt a seven-kilometre perimeter and left 140 hectares of charred, smoking earth.
Helicopters with monsoon buckets, more than 100 firefighters from Gisborne and Hawke's Bay, and heavy earthmoving contractors had fought to bring it under control.
The Janes managed to keep the fire from their home and hay shed, and their 50 cows and 180 deer walked through burning sandhills to safety.
'At one stage we thought we weren't going to win,' Mrs Jane said.
A neighbour, Hau Taumata, said that at one property, he and fellow firefighters saved a truck and a house, but a tractor, trailer, boat and another truck were burnt.
Farmer Ian Pickering, a member of the district's emergency services, said the fire's ferocity and speed were spectacular and frightening.
He saved 100 cattle on his property, but lost about four hectares of pine trees and kilometres of fencing.
Conservation Department spokesman Malcolm Smith said it could take weeks to fully extinguish the deep-seated fire.
There were fears last night that strong winds could reignite it.