{"id":15628,"date":"2025-11-11T05:57:55","date_gmt":"2025-11-10T16:57:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=15628"},"modified":"2025-11-11T05:57:55","modified_gmt":"2025-11-10T16:57:55","slug":"tongariro-fire-tourists-helicoptered-out-as-ash-fell-from-sky","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=15628","title":{"rendered":"Tongariro fire: Tourists helicoptered out as ash fell from sky"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A tourist helicoptered out of the Tongariro National Park to avoid the fire burning through the region has described the dramatic moments he realised there was danger in the air.<\/p>\n<p>Matthias Gerold was taken to Whakapapa village, and was then evacuated from there as the blaze continued.<\/p>\n<p>Wet weather has provided hope today for business owners nearby, who have worried a long-term closure of the Tongariro Crossing could prove catastrophic for the region.<\/p>\n<p>Emergency services delivered good news this afternoon, saying there was a significant improvement in conditions and residents were allowed to return to Whakapapa.<\/p>\n<p>rnz<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A tourist helicoptered out of the Tongariro National Park to avoid the fire burning through the region has described the dramatic moments he realised there was danger in the air. Matthias Gerold was taken to Whakapapa village, and was then evacuated from there as the blaze continued. Wet weather has provided hope today for business [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":15629,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news","category-nz-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15628"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15628\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15630,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15628\/revisions\/15630"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}