OPen Air Fire Ban - Northern Hawkes Bay 21/12/2012

[JennyLeez]

An Open Air Fire ban has been placed across the Wairoa, Mahia and rural district as at tonight 12.00am.
With an average daily high temp of 26.2 for December and 9.9mm rain our land is dry.
The last 5 months have seen a total of 240mm of rain. Only 22mm in November.
Water tanks are dry and our rural folk are heading to purchase tanks of water. This is extremely expensive.

Lets hope the Christmas forecast for rain does reach the east coast as we will welcome it.

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[Suezy]

Yes we know the feeling Jenny and had the sirens go off twice yesterday.  In the last 5 months we have had a total of 276.0 and if it were not for the 100.2 in August we too would be in real strife.
Owing to being on the old Waimak riverbed the rain does not hang around and usually sinks in straightaway and with the hot weather dries out very quickly and you only need a car with a hot exhaust to stop on the grass verge and starts a fire or a cigarette butt out the window and again a fire starts.  I only wish that people would stop and think before they do sime things.
In 2011 we had in those same 5 months  270.0 and in 2010 a total of 222.0.
  The latter year we had two good fires out our way - which made us get our act together and get a pump - for the pond and fire hoses.
Our fire service here is all voluntary and they have water tankers owing to not having fire hydrants that they can hook into like town - just what they can carry in the tankers and can use if close to a water race , swimming pool etc. to top up.

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[JennyLeez]

Yes it is the same here. All voluntary and water tankers for the rural area. Mind, you only need to go a few blocks down towards the beach here and tankers are needed.
One of the volunteers lives across the road and they have used our property for practice runs in the pass. Gotta love the small town.

[Suezy]

Yes I love the small village atmosphere too where you got to know everyone. Unfortunately with the large quakes we have had and the devastation we now face in town -  two large subdivisions further down the road and one already expanding.  Another one is going up that I know of plus one further down the road.  The land out West where we are is much more stable than out the East side and we did not get any land damage or liquefaction.
We are also meant to have 25 shops going up down the road too - instead of just one bowser with a mechanic - which has been recently updated - a couple of churches (one with a small cemetery) and a community Hall  a primary school with a swimming pool, a fire station - and of course sporting facilities like a bowling club, tennis court and a rugby ground with public toilets and a small playground.And of course a country pub as well.
Yes I do love the village atmosphere but it has practically now all gone and no doubt we will have the traffic lights down the end of the road to enable cars to get out on to the main highway.  We may also now get cell phone reception here one day too so I suppose we shall put it all down to progress. Shame really but we all have memories.
We have yet to have our fire ban announced by the county.
Take care Jenny and hope the rain arrives fairly soon.
Gee I ramble on a bit after looking back on this.

[JennyLeez]

The TV forecast for us up here Suezy looks exactly what we want.
A wet Christmas wont worry me.

I doubt the rest of the forum will agree though