Blaze near Queenstown homes
Firefighters extinguished a large scrub fire on a hillside between three Queenstown suburbs this afternoon.
Crews from Frankton, Queenstown and Arrowtown were called to the blaze near Lake Hayes Estate, Shotover Country and Kawarau Heights shortly after 3pm.
The fire had taken hold on the hillside next to a walking track and threatened to spread to nearby properties.
But it was brought under control in under 25 minutes from the call. There were no injuries reported.
Frankton Station Officer Karl Argyle was one of the first one the scene.
"The crews got it under control pretty quickly and have done a great job. I'd say it's about 40sqm but that's a guess," he says.
"It was pretty close to property on the back edge, the eastern front, and there's the subdivisions' water tanks, the main gas line and electricity transmission lines nearby, so plenty of hazards."
Around 25 fire fighters were on scene within minutes, tackling the fire with 15 hoses from several fire engines.
Blythe Thompson and Alex Hill, who live in one of the houses at the bottom of the hill close to the fire, watched the flames spread down the hill.
"We smelt the smoke and thought something of ours was burning, but then we went outside and the whole top of the hill was on fire," Thompson says.
"People had already called the fire brigade, so we started looking for the cat cage and the suitcase."
Hill grabbed a hose to spray down the fences but says the firefighters were quickly on the scene.
"We thought it was a possibility it might spread to our house, and it was close to one of our neighbours'. We closed all our windows to stop the smoke and I grabbed the hose.
"I was spraying and the fire was right there, then the firefighters came through and woosh, it was gone. They did a bloody good job."
Station Officer Argyle says the cause of the blaze is not yet known, although will be investigated.
"We're not worried about that right now, we're just happy we got to it and it's out.
"It's our second one of the weekend. There was a 50sqm one at Lakeside Estate yesterday. It happened at 9pm and we were there until about 1am. So it's been a really busy weekend for the volunteers. Hopefully we'll wrap this one up in an hour or so.
"At this time of year, we'd ask people to please be safe with what they're doing."
Argyle says despite there being plenty of locals on the scene watching the response, including lots of children, they were well behaved, kept back and let the firefighters do their job.
