2017 Port Hills fires

The 2017 Port Hills fires were wildfires in the Port Hills of Christchurch, New Zealand. Two separate fires, several kilometres apart, started on Monday afternoon on 13 February 2017. By Wednesday night the fire was spread by the Christchurch Adventure Park chairlift and had combined to one large area. A helicopter crashed helping to fight the fires, causing the death of the pilot. Nine houses were destroyed and a further two were significantly damaged by the fires, and hundreds of residents were evacuated. The cause is officially undetermined, but it is now known the Early Valley Road fire was caused by an electrical fault, while the Summit Road fire was deliberately lit.

On 14 February 2024 a similar fire started in the same area, triggering a state of emergency, a major deployment of firefighting helicopters, and evacuations of nearby houses. Lessons learned from the 2017 fire contributed to the official response and strategy for the new fire.

A fire started on Monday afternoon in Early Valley Road in Lansdowne near Halswell and Tai Tapu. The Fire Service were alerted to the fire at 5:45pm. Subsequent computer modelling put the ignition time of the fire between 5:34pm and 5:36pm. Lansdowne is the eastern extreme of Selwyn District, and the Selwyn Rural Fire Authority assumed control in fighting the fire. Early on, a house on Early Valley Road burned down.

A second fire broke out several kilometres further east on Marleys Hill next to the Summit Road near Dyers Pass; this fire was reported 90 minutes after the previous one. Landmarks nearby include the Sign of the Kiwi, the new Christchurch Adventure Park, Victoria Park, and the communications tower on Sugarloaf. Although the second fire was located in the area controlled by Christchurch City Council, the response to both fires was controlled and co-ordinated by the Selwyn Rural Fire Authority. The Christchurch Adventure Park closed at 7:00 pm due to high winds and the nearby fire. A low number of residents located on Summit Road and that part of Worsleys Road that starts at the Summit Road were evacuated.

The fire service used more than a dozen helicopters with monsoon buckets to douse the flames with water, and some fixed wing planes to spray fire retardants. In the early afternoon, a helicopter fighting the fires crashed, killing the pilot and sole occupant Steve Askin. Askin was a former member of the New Zealand Special Air Service and in 2014 had been awarded the Gallantry Star, New Zealand's second highest military decoration, for exceptional bravery during service in the war in Afghanistan, and during the 2011 Intercontinental Hotel siege in Kabul. The interim report from the Transport Accident Investigation Commission (TAIC) released in May 2017 suggested the Eurocopter AS350 Écureuil crashed after the empty monsoon bucket swung back and was entangled in the tail rotor.

During Tuesday, the fire went into the grounds of the Christchurch Adventure Park, coming "dangerously close" to the top station of the chairlift. At one point, the fire service stated that the two fires were contained, with crews monitoring the fires and not much activity expected due to low winds. By Tuesday, the fire had burned covered 548 hectares (1,350 acres) on Early Valley Road, and 36 hectares (89 acres) on Marleys Hill.

After dark on Tuesday the fire tracked southwestwards from the summit road down the spur and two valleys towards Governors Bay, reaching its nearest point to the main road above Ohinetahi. This forced the evacuation of some properties above the Main Road including the church, but this fire front was extinguished without damage to property.

During Wednesday, the fire spread and by 10am, about 1,000 hectares (2,500 acres) had burned. About 89,000 Christchurch residents lost power in the afternoon for half an hour after the smoke and flames caused a Transpower 220 kV line to trip; this also shut down the city council's water pump stations and fire fighters lost water access from fire hydrants. A shift in wind during the day made the situation volatile and accelerated the spread of the fire. Around 4 pm, some of the pilots witnessed a fire tornado near Halswell Quarry that reached a height of around 100 metres (330 ft). At 6:30 pm, a state of emergency under the Civil Defence Emergency Management Act 2002 was declared. Winds up to 45 kilometres per hour (28 mph) created favourable conditions for the fire. Approximately 1000 people were forced to evacuate their homes, including in the suburbs of Cashmere, Westmorland, Kennedys Bush, and along Worsleys Road. In the evening, Civil Defence reported that 40 houses had burned down, but the statement was quickly retracted and that instead, three houses had been lost. Many roads within the Port Hills area were closed to give unhindered access to emergency services, undisrupted by onlookers. At 9 pm, the fire jumped across Dyers Pass Road and went into Victoria Park, prompting authorities to order the evacuation above the Sign of the Takahe. Over night, the originally separate fires merged into one, and fire fighters battled at ten separate fire fronts.