\u201cIt was incredibly fortunate that the fire was able to be extinguished quickly by Fire and Emergency, given the terrain and the high winds experienced at this location.\u201d<\/p>\n
Te Mata Park Trust chairman Jon Lewin said the small fire was located between the park\u2019s main gates car park on Te Mata Peak Rd and the Rongo\u0101 Garden.<\/p>\n
\u201cA section of native planting was destroyed by the fire \u2013 we estimate the area to be about 40 by 40 metres.<\/p>\n
\u201cAbout 80 well-established harakeke [flax], plus native trees including k\u014dwhai, cabbage trees, sedges and native grasses were destroyed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Burned native plants on Te Mata Peak Rd after fireworks lit a fire on Tuesday evening. Photo \/ Jack Riddell<\/p>\n
Lewin wants to remind the public that fires and fireworks were not permitted in Te Mata Park at any time.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor the last few years, the trust has worked with Hastings District Council to restrict access to the summit over the Guy Fawkes period by closing Te Mata Peak Rd at the barrier above the Peak House,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately, we are unable to restrict access to the main gates, where we believe the fire initiated from, and rely on the public to adhere to the fire ban within the park as well as use common sense to protect our whenua [land].\u201d<\/p>\n
Fire and Emergency New Zealand said two crews and two tankers responded to the fire at about 10pm on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
A restricted fire season kicked off at midday on Tuesday, meaning a permit from Fire and Emergency is required to light a fire in the open air.<\/p>\n
Fireworks are still permitted under restricted fire seasons, so Guy Fawkes celebrations on private land could proceed on Wednesday with caution.<\/p>\n
Areas now in a restricted fire season run from just south of Wairoa to the Tararua District.<\/p>\n
These areas are Esk-T\u016btaekur\u012b, to the north and east of Napier; Ahuriri-Heretaunga, which encompasses both Napier and Hastings cities; Tukituki West and Tukituki East, which run along the Ruahine Range and encompass Waipawa and Waipukurau; and the southern Hawke\u2019s Bay coast, which runs from Haumoana south to P\u014drangahau, which is also a restricted fire area.<\/p>\n
Jack Riddell is a multimedia journalist with Hawke\u2019s Bay Today and has worked in radio and media in Britain, Germany and New Zealand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIt was incredibly fortunate that the fire was able to be extinguished quickly by Fire and Emergency, given…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":118599,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[16651,3595,3944,14167,2079,33841,3011,71,47034,33491,2205,11927,5840,23998,126,111,43,139,22258,69,13028,4056,675,8214,11555,8690,25447,25728,102,4741],"class_list":["post-118598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-bush","tag-by","tag-car","tag-destroyed","tag-fire","tag-fireworks","tag-four","tag-from","tag-havelock","tag-identify","tag-involved","tag-landed","tag-least","tag-mata","tag-native","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-norths","tag-nz","tag-peak","tag-person","tag-police","tag-sparked","tag-started","tag-te","tag-thrown","tag-trouble","tag-with","tag-young"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118598","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=118598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}