Official insurance company figures of fire losses suggest that in New Zealand misfortune and human folly in this connection are no less costly than in most other communities. The annual bill for property destruction by fire is huge, and it is only by the maintenance of the strictest vigilance that the forest and bush resources of the Dominion are being preserved from fire havoc.
There have, however, been terrible examples of the loss of human life by fire. Chief among these was undoubtedly the holocaust in a Christchurch department store in 1947 which cost 41 lives. The sudden development of a minor basement outbreak into a raging inferno represents the most shocking tragedy by fire in the history of New Zealand. It occurred during the afternoon shopping hours on 18 November 1947 in Ballantyne and Co.'s three-storey store in Colombo Street, Christchurch. The dead were all members of the store staff and, the bodies being unidentifiable, were buried in a common grave. The inflammable nature of a great deal of the £300,000 worth of stock and merchandise in the building (much of it in the basement where the fire originated), and the peculiar internal structural subdivision of the spacious premises, which covered a full acre of ground, encouraged the spread of what, after the first 20 minutes, could only be described as a gigantic roaring furnace. Staff were trapped on all floors, but most of those in the lower sections were rescued or escaped. Girls and women in the workrooms and offices on the upper floor were apparently doomed from the outset. About two hours after the alarm was given, firemen penetrated to the ground floor and found the first bodies. From then on the search was a long and melancholy one, and it was not until late at night, after a hastily summoned staff assembly had been checked and rechecked, that the terrible toll of the fire was definitely known. A Royal Commission of Inquiry investigated the disaster, sitting for 65 days and hearing 186 witnesses. The findings were revealing and resulted in a general overhaul of statutory safeguards in fire control. There was evidence of a delay in calling the fire brigade, but what was most disquieting was the Commission's unequivocal conclusion that there was failure on the part of brigade officers on arrival at the fire to realise the dire potentialities of the situation and to take adequate steps to meet them. The Commission also considered that the rescue efforts suffered from a lack of competent leadership.
Another fire, with fatal consequences for 39 female patients of the Seacliff Mental Hospital in Otago, broke out in the institution on the night of 8 December 1942. Although no more than 20 miles from Dunedin, and less than that from the Waihemo County centre of Palmerston, the site of the Seacliff Hospital on the sea coast was an isolated one as far as outside help was concerned, and early efforts at fire fighting had to be undertaken by the institution staff. They responded magnificently, but their endeavours were greatly prejudiced by the fact that most exits and entrances to the special wards of the hospital had been carefully secured for the night. It was in one of these sections (Ward No. 5) that the fire originated, and before general access to it could be effected, 39 of the 41 inmates of the ward had been trapped beyond aid. Hundreds of other patients in the institution were successfully evacuated, but by the time entrance was forced into Ward No. 5 it was too late. The cause of the fire was never definitely determined, but an official inquiry established that Ward 5 was “dangerous in respect of fire hazard”. As in the case of Ballantyne's tragedy, one outcome of the calamity was a new code of safety precautions for all such institutions.
Bush and forest fires on the grand scale have not been uncommon in New Zealand, but few of them have achieved the proportions of major catastrophe. Of those that have, one of the most notable was the Raetihi fire of 19 and 20 March 1918. Over an area of many square miles of Main Trunk country, this conflagration flared for an alarming two days, covering in its flaming stride Ohakune, Raetihi, Horopito, and Rangataua. Although they were then little more than small bush townships, they preserved their existence only by a very narrow margin. The main casualties of a terrifying experience were a family of three—father, mother, and child in a lonely house eight miles from Raetihi—who were burned to death. Public utilities such as railways, telegraph lines, and bridges fell easy victims to the march of the fire, and over 150 dwellings, plus nine active sawmills, were destroyed. A full accounting of the losses suffered was never made, but there was a sorry bill for livestock and pasturage in a district that was busily engaged in conserving winter fodder. The sawmilling industry, too, suffered a setback from which it took years to recover. Hundreds of miles away people saw the evidence of destruction. In Wellington, 200 miles distant, the afternoon skies gloomed over, smoke penetrated everywhere and schools closed.
Following a prolonged drought, a fire, thought to have been started from a cigarette butt, broke out alongside the Wairakei-Oruanui Road in the Taupo region on 7 February 1946. Next day, fanned by a strong wind, it crossed the Waikato River south of the Aratiatia rapids and threatened the Taupo township. On 9 February the wind changed and the fire travelled north-east, ultimately sweeping both sides of the Waikato River towards Reporoa. This fire, in the space of a few days, swept over more than 250,000 acres of country and destroyed about 30,000 acres of young afforestation company plantations, mostly radiata pine. During the rains that followed in the autumn, very dense regeneration of radiata pine occurred in the burnt-over plantations. The fire had opened the cones which are normally closed and liberated the seeds. On the best sites there was an establishment of over half a million seedlings per acre.
As a result of this fire, which was regarded at the time as a national calamity, the Forest and Rural Fires Act 1947 was passed. This makes adequate provision for rural fire control throughout the country and has laid the foundation for a good rural firefighting organisation.
by Ronald Jones, Journalist and Script Writer, New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation, Wellington.