As firefighters dampen down today's fire, an investigation is underway into the cause of yesterday's blaze south of Christchurch.
Four houses were badly damaged, and 18,000 hens died at an egg farm.
The farm’s owner Allan Marshall says nothing is salvageable from the site.
“We have gone 20 years without a fire,” he says.
But yesterday the hens were charred and cremated after fire, fanned by yesterday’s hot winds, swept through the property.
“They were asphyxiated by the smoke and then the fire went through,” says Mr Marshall.
The fire started on a nearby private property and quickly spread over 150 hectares. The manager of nearby Selwyn Quarries, Chris Hardwick, says he saw the blaze break out.
“There was an explosion of fire in [the] tree line,” he says. “It just went up in flames”.
The fire started just behind a gravel pit, and travelled down both sides and through some hay bales before jumping the road.
The 2km flame front was fought by 150 firefighters and contractors, along with four helicopters.
Principal rural fire officer Wilson Brown says the cost of the fire will run “well into the hundreds of thousands of dollars”, and could possibly top $1 million.
Fire Service incident controller Douglas Marshall says his team are now looking for the cause of the fire.
“Today we are spending a bit of time getting the area mapped, making the photos and that sort of thing, and obviously talking to those people who can help us with the investigation,” he says.
A fire restriction was in place before Christmas, and Mr Hardwick says the fire could have originated even before then.
“It was probably prior to Christmas and some old embers that are remaining and with the heat and everything else in the last week it is just enough to ignite it,” he says.
Crews have been left to put out embers still smouldering, in order to extinguish any chance of flare ups, and with the fire almost out it's now up to the Selwyn District Council to calculate who was responsible, and the cost.
3 News
source: newshub archive
