Port Hills fire recovery continuing

Work on the recovery of the Port Hills following the Valentine’s Day fire is underway.

Christchurch City Council and Fire and Emergency New Zealand staff updated Councillors on the response and recovery to the blaze which covered 650 hectares of land.

Recovery Manager John Filsell said a key issue for the Council is to consider the environmental and ecological damage.

The immediate priority has been managing sediment run-off from the fire site.

“The recovery began when the fire was still burning – it is something we start planning for in the immediate response. But we’re now in a position where we can incorporate the long term recovery into our day-to-day work.”

A Port Hills Plan will be developed to consider the continuing environmental resilience of Council-owned public land - the fire area may be highlighted in a parallel stream of work.

Of the 650ha covered by the fire, 28ha is Council reserve with the rest of the land being private property.

“In the immediate aftermath of the fire, we completed archaeological and geotechnical assessments of the area, made sure roads and other lifeline infrastructure were back in place and have worked with landowners to reestablish fencing,” Mr Filsell said.

“One of our biggest projects has been reducing sediment run off from the fire grounds, which will help protect the investment we’ve made in the Cashmere and Te Kuru Basins and ultimately preventing contaminants entering the Ōpāwaho Heathcote River.”

The Council has worked closely with the Adventure Park to support them putting measures in place to reduce the impact of sediment run off, including cut-off drains and gravelling key fire breaks at the Park, removing slash and sediment from Cashmere Stream within its boundaries so water is free flowing.

The Council has also removed sediment and doubled the size of a first-flush basin near the Park, removed sediment from ponds at the Te Kuru Basin in Hoon Hay and trialling mussel-shell bunds which will help reduce contaminants entering the river.

“We had the benefit of lessons learnt from the 2017 Port Hills fire, so we put that into practice, declaring a state of emergency promptly, and followed up with a strong and multi-agency response,” Mr Filsell said.

District Commander Dave Stackhouse said FENZ is also underway with a number of long term recovery and fire prevention initiatives.

“Since the fire, we’ve been collaborating with the Council and local iwi on low flammability planting on the Port Hills which would slow down the fire in a future event and have been providing advice to residents on how to reduce fuel sources around their properties,” he said.

“At the end of the day, the fire could have been a lot worse if the response wasn’t as good as it was.  We want to continue that through the long term planning and recovery.”

Christchurch Mayor Phil Mauger said the update highlighted how well the agencies collaborated during the fire and continue to do so.

“We owe a massive debt of gratitude to every single person who worked hard on the response to this event, that includes all of the different agencies and the community.”  

A close-out report on the Port Hills fire response and recovery is being completed and will be presented to the Council.