25 January 2005

Canterbury's Rural Fire Co-ordinating Committee reports that with the recent hotter weather and north-westerly conditions, vegetation throughout Canterbury is starting to dry out, pushing up fire danger levels.Don't be complacent because of the recent rain. It only takes a few hours of hot summer sun to dry out dead vegetation so it will burn and carry a fire.

With the amount of growth occurring following the wet summer to date, property owners need to keep on top of new grass and vegetation growth before it dries off by mowing road sides and sections and removing all long vegetation. This reduces the fire risk by limiting the amount of fuel available if a fire does start. Remember, if mowing dry grass, do this in the cooler part of the day when there is less likelihood of sparks from a mower starting a fire.

Residents should also clear any burnable materials from around houses and sheds and clean debris from roof gutters and drain pipes.
Farmers who will be entering their harvesting season soon should take care to ensure all machinery is well maintained for dry conditions, fire extinguishers are carried,be aware of the danger of sparks from machinery and avoid the build-up of vegetation against hot parts of equipment.

Canterbury’s Rural Fire Co-ordinating Committee is calling for the region’s biggest ever garden clean up.

Committee spokesperson Tony Teeling, from the Department of Conservation, said that prior to Christmas the rural fire authorities would like to see tidy front and back yards throughout all of Canterbury.

He said this was a situation where individuals really could make a difference.

“If everyone cut back all of their long grass and removed all dead vegetation then we’d have a lot less fuel for fires this summer. We know from experience that when we have extreme fire risk it really makes a difference if houses and farm buildings have what we call defensible space – an area where there is no fuel for fires.”

Property owners should also be removing any live vegetation such gorse which was growing next to implement sheds and other farm buildings.

Tree branches that are touching buildings were also a problem because of the potential for a fire to spread from nearby vegetation onto a building.

Mr Teeling said that after the extreme fire risk last summer rural fire authorities had refined their systems and improved the co-operation between all of the agencies involved.

A major exercise involving 400 rural fire personnel was held in October which had brought a number of new people from throughout the community on board so that they could help out in the management of rural fires.





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