{"id":642087,"date":"2026-10-26T19:58:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-26T19:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/642087\/"},"modified":"2026-10-26T19:58:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-26T19:58:10","slug":"waiouru-fire-live-fire-training-sparks-230ha-blaze-near-desert-rd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/642087\/","title":{"rendered":"Wai\u014duru fire: Live-fire training sparks 230ha blaze near Desert Rd"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"FxSPvgIxedhFU\" style=\"display:none\">A Herald reader captured footage showing thick clouds of grey and white smoke billowing into the sky above the Central Plateau.<\/p>\n<p><img  alt=\"Thick clouds of smoke billow into the sky as a vegetation fire burns through the Waiouru Military Area near the Desert Rd.\" class=\"article-media__image responsively-lazy\" data-test-ui=\"article-media__image\"\/>Thick clouds of smoke billow into the sky as a vegetation fire burns through the Waiouru Military Area near the Desert Rd.<\/p>\n<p class=\"FxSPvgIxedhFU\" style=\"display:none\">A motorist travelling from Taup\u014d to Wellington told the Herald they initially mistook the smoke for a large cloud before rounding a bend and realising a fire was burning in the distance.<\/p>\n<p class=\"FxSPvgIxedhFU\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cEvery now and then you could see the flames through the smoke even though we were super far away,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"FxSPvgIxedhFU\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cWhen we first saw it, the smoke cloud was big but hadn\u2019t travelled far.<\/p>\n<p class=\"FxSPvgIxedhFU\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cBy the time we got to Waiouru about 10 minutes later, it had spread considerably.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"FxSPvgIxedhFU\" style=\"display:none\">Warning signs are being put in place along the road, and motorists are being urged to proceed with caution.<\/p>\n<p class=\"FxSPvgIxedhFU\" style=\"display:none\">Strong winds battered parts of the country today, with a powerful weather front moving north.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Herald reader captured footage showing thick clouds of grey and white smoke billowing into the sky above&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":642088,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[314869,1443,74,12635,4996,28527,7410,2837,2079,80501,314868,647,3180,111,43,139,69,2642,8207,8812,23440,206623],"class_list":["post-642087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-230ha","tag-about","tag-after","tag-area","tag-blaze","tag-burned","tag-desert","tag-during","tag-fire","tag-igniting","tag-livefire","tag-military","tag-near","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-rd","tag-sparks","tag-training","tag-vegetation","tag-waiuru"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642087","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=642087"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642087\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/642088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=642087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=642087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=642087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}