{"id":116660,"date":"2025-11-04T02:20:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-04T02:20:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/116660\/"},"modified":"2025-11-04T02:20:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-04T02:20:10","slug":"popular-west-auckland-walking-track-significantly-damaged-by-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/116660\/","title":{"rendered":"Popular West Auckland walking track significantly damaged by fire"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of Auckland\u2019s popular walking tracks has suffered significant damage from a fire on Sunday, which has forced its closure \u2014 just over a year after it re-opened to the public.<\/p>\n

Fire and Emergency New Zealand were called to a vegetation fire at Fairy Falls Track in the Wait\u0101kere Ranges Regional Park about 8am on Sunday.<\/p>\n

The fire, which firefighters had to walk 25 minutes into the track to put out, was about 150m by 75m big \u2014 larger than a soccer field, or three Olympic-sized swimming pools laid end-to-end.<\/p>\n

FENZ said the damage was significant.<\/p>\n

Auckland Council western principal ranger Dave Markham said the fire destroyed a large platform near a popular swimming hole, as well as about 80m of stairs.<\/p>\n

It also damaged a bridge that crossed the waterfall.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of these structures were recently installed to enable visitors to return in September 2024,\u201d Markham said.<\/p>\n

Fairy Falls Track re-opened<\/a> in September 2024 after being closed for six years to prevent the spread of kauri dieback disease through the ranges.<\/p>\n

\"Fairy<\/p>\n

Fairy Falls Track re-opened last summer after being closed for six years because of kauri dieback disease. (Source: Local Democracy Reporting)<\/p>\n

The council spent $1.6 million to renew it before its grand opening last year.<\/p>\n

Markham said they were grateful to FENZ for their hard work in containing the fire at a busy time of the year.<\/p>\n

The track was now closed, and while the cost of damages was yet to be assessed, he said they would get to it as soon as the initial clean-up was completed.<\/p>\n

“We’re extremely disappointed that, so close to summer, we’ve been forced to close this much-loved track.<\/p>\n

“Fires in our regional parks are always devastating, but this one is particularly heart-breaking after all the work that went into renewing this track so we could reopen it last summer.”<\/p>\n

Markham urged visitors not to light fires at regional parks.<\/p>\n

“Our regional parks are precious taonga that we all have a responsibility to look after and protect for future generations.<\/p>\n

“They are all smoke-free and fires are banned. I strongly urge visitors to think about whether their actions may impact on how we care for these beautiful areas \u2014 please don’t ever light fires.”<\/p>\n

A FENZ spokesperson said its investigations into the cause of the blaze was still ongoing.<\/p>\n

Six crews responded to the Sunday call, and the fire was fully extinguished about 12.45pm.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, multiple regional park paths in Auckland has been restored and reopened in the past six months, in time for summer.<\/p>\n

All 54 tracks within northern regional parks are open, and only two of 25 tracks in the southern region parks network remain closed.<\/p>\n

Of the 11 western regional park tracks that are closed, only three need further investigation and funding to determine the next steps.<\/p>\n

Fairy Falls Track, Fletcher Track, Parau, Panto and Farley tracks and Whatitiri Track remain closed to the public.<\/p>\n

LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.<\/p>\n

The morning’s headlines in 90 seconds, including a kiwi mum pleads for help after a firebomb attack, the NZ hopes at the Melbourne Cup, and a notorious pitch invader strikes again. (Source: Breakfast)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of Auckland\u2019s popular walking tracks has suffered significant damage from a fire on Sunday, which has forced…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":116661,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[51,273,42,43,40,38,41,39,4143],"class_list":{"0":"post-116660","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-auckland","9":"tag-environment","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-top-news","13":"tag-top-stories","14":"tag-topnews","15":"tag-topstories","16":"tag-wildfires"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116660","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=116660"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116660\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}