Firefighters have contained multiple scrub fires that threatened homes in Canterbury, and are continuing to work on the hot spots.<\/p>\n
A number of spot fires broke out along a railway line between Aylesbury and Darfield, west of Christchurch and were first reported about 4.30pm Sunday.<\/p>\n
By 7:30pm Fire and Emergency (FENZ) confirmed that houses in the area, and especially near Kirwee, were “no longer … under immediate threat from fire”, and no homes had been damaged.<\/p>\n
However three helicopters were still at work on the hotspots, along with 17 ground crews, using pumps, tankers, smoke chasers and a Command Unit.<\/p>\n
People were initially asked to keep away from the area, with police working on setting up road closures, but State Highway 73 would be reopened soon, FENZ said.<\/p>\n
One of the blazes was believed to have started by sparks from a train travelling toward Darfield, and the fire crews had been working on multiple blazes at once.<\/p>\n
“A freight train shunting wagons from a milk factory in West Rolleston was held back near Darfield earlier today after it created a number of grass fires along the track,” a KiwiRail spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
“The train was stopped while the incident was being investigated. No one was hurt.”<\/p>\n
The track is closed overnight between Rolleston and Darfield.<\/p>\n
KiwiRail said affected services overnight include the TranzAlpine travelling from Greymouth to Christchurch with 172 passengers on board. Overnight freight services are also affected.<\/p>\n
Bus replacements are in place for the TranzAlpine passengers.<\/p>\n
“We are sorry for the inconvenience, but safety has to be our top priority,” the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
Kirwee township resident Pauline Hubbard, who lives near the railway line, said the fire began moments after a train went past.<\/p>\n
“It had six locomotives pulling the train, and it was soon after that the fire started. And apparently – my daughter’s just rung me, and she said there were sparks coming out from the locomotives.”<\/p>\n
Hubbard said it was not the first time a train had caused a fire in the area.<\/p>\n
An RNZ reporter at the scene said the police have lifted a cordon which was set up at the intersection of West Coast Road and Courtenay Road.<\/p>\n
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Firefighters have contained multiple scrub fires that threatened homes in Canterbury, and are continuing to work on the hot spots. A number of spot fires broke out along a railway line between Aylesbury and Darfield, west of Christchurch and were first reported about 4.30pm Sunday. By 7:30pm Fire and Emergency (FENZ) confirmed that houses in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":8862,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8861","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\/8861","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=8861"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8861\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8863,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8861\/revisions\/8863"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}