13 Feb 2018

Port Hills fire: One year on, locals still recovering

From Morning Report, 8:40 am on 13 February 2018

It's one year since Christchurch's devastating Port Hills Fires started. At about 5:45pm on February 13 last year a fire started on Early Valley Road in Lansdowne. Four hours later, another blaze started - several kilometres away on Marley's Hill. The two fires combined and and tore through an area of nearly 2000 hectares - destroying nine homes, damaging five others and forcing thousands of people to evacuate their properties. Helicopter pilot and decorated soldier Steve Askin was killed when his helicopter crashed as he was fighting the blaze. It was 66 days before the fire was fully extinguished.