A regional council spokesperson said they were aware of a \u201cgreen waste fire\u201d in the Springfield area on Monday morning.<\/p>\n
A planned burn-off at the Springfield Golf Course on Monday. <\/p>\n
They said the fire fell outside the remit for open burning under the council\u2019s Regional Natural Resources Plan.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese rules state that any outdoor fire must not cause noxious or dangerous, offensive or objectionable smoke beyond the boundary of the property where the fire is located.\u201d<\/p>\n
The regional council was not made aware of the planned fire in advance, the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
It had since discussed the issue with the golf club and informed it of its \u201cresponsibilities going forwards\u201d.<\/p>\n
Rotorua’s Bay of Plenty Regional Council building. Photo \/ Laura Smith<\/p>\n
The council reminded residents planning on lighting an outdoor fire this summer to check the regional council website and ensure they were aware of the rules.<\/p>\n
Fire and Emergency Northern Communications shift manager Ryan Geen confirmed it received a call about a vegetation fire at the golf course.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was then confirmed to be a controlled burn-off,\u201d Geen said. No further action was required. <\/p>\n
A Springfield Golf Club employee said the controlled fire was extinguished yesterday morning.<\/p>\n
They said the burn-off consisted of green waste, including several recently felled dead trees.<\/p>\n
Despite suggestions online, they said there was no rubber burned.<\/p>\n
Springfield Golf Course, Rotorua. Photo \/ Felix Desmarais<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was just vegetation.\u201d<\/p>\n
They said the regional council was made aware of the burn-off in advance, along with Fire and Emergency.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve done everything correctly and how we\u2019re supposed to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Children at the nearby BestStart daycare complained of a \u201cfunny smell\u201d, according to centre manager Neroli Lemon, but did not seem overly impacted by the smoke.<\/p>\n
Resident Ryan Gray suggested the golf course should look at alternative means of waste disposal after witnessing children \u201ccovering their mouths\u201d and \u201ccoughing\u201d on the school run.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a bit alarming and just pretty crappy to deal with because you are unsure what it is.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rules and recommendations for outdoor burning listed on the regional council\u2019s website included not lighting a fire within 100m of a neighbouring dwelling, not burning household rubbish, plastics, or treated timber, ensuring garden waste is dry before burning and checking wind, weather, and local rules.<\/p>\n
The council also advised letting neighbours know and keeping fires away from roads and highways, with airflow for efficient burning, and never during smoke inversion conditions. <\/p>\n
Mathew Nash is a Local Democracy Reporting journalist based at the Rotorua Daily Post. He has previously written for SunLive, been a regular contributor to RNZ and was a football reporter in the UK for eight years.<\/p>\n
– LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A regional council spokesperson said they were aware of a \u201cgreen waste fire\u201d in the Springfield area on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":116659,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[74,14772,82824,8908,30701,18478,18126,111,43,139,69,5493,12064,3109,16675,530,1327,6122,8214,8207,1361,61,6859],"class_list":{"0":"post-116658","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-after","9":"tag-burning","10":"tag-burnoff","11":"tag-check","12":"tag-complaints","13":"tag-course","14":"tag-golf","15":"tag-new-zealand","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-newzealand","18":"tag-nz","19":"tag-open","20":"tag-prompted","21":"tag-public","22":"tag-reminder","23":"tag-residents","24":"tag-rotorua","25":"tag-rules","26":"tag-sparked","27":"tag-sparks","28":"tag-that","29":"tag-to","30":"tag-told"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116658\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}