@Sandrathanks, although they seem to have grown worse over the course of today and, as of today, the Tasman region fire is now officially the worse fire in New Zealand for 50 years. We literally are praying for a miracle for residents of Nelson, Wakefield and Wai-iti.
We are now up to 2,500 people evacuated and it has hit a third town. Civil Defence were filmed this afternoon saying "it's in gods hands now", because they are genuinely concerned about the wind tomorrow. They've done all they can to control this, but if the wind picks up tomorrow like the forecast says, then it's going to get even worse.
To make matters worse, 237 kilometers away, a second fire broke out in my city of Wellington this afternoon just across the valley from us!
This is a photo we took ourselves from our lounge window:
The wildfire photographed above in Wellington has burned for 2.5 hours and at one point we saw flames about 12 stories high over the trees. They seem to have got it under control now, thank god, but there is still smoke pouring out of the trees.
To be honest, we were worried about Civil Defence having to call the Wellington fire helicopters back from serving against the Tasman fire (across the channel) becuase they really can't afford to fight fire in two places at once. The Tasman fire is far larger and more dangerous, so it was a bit nerve wrecking watching and hoping the Wellington fire wouldn't turn into a second front for fire services to battle.
#prayfornewzealand
