2017: Port Hills Fires

February 13, 2020

By AHNZ

Today in history, February 13, 2017, the Port Hills of Christchurch caught fire and then burned for the next 9 days. Or, officially, were not put out until April 20th!¹ Without The State who would save us from fire?

“Fire broke out in the Port Hills above Christchurch on February 13, 2017. It burned through 2000 hectares of bush and farmland and destroyed 11 houses before it was extinguished.”-

The truth is that events like the Port Hills fire happen all the time. Almost always on government land. Watch and see state-owned land in California and Melbourne in future headlines. (But you wont hear the mainstream media emphasise that it’s government land because they’re ‘on message’ for the state!)

Memorial?

For me to value a memorial it has to have some lasting meaning though. If we erected a public monument every time something like this happened it would cheapen the practise and the land would become dotted with plaques and monoliths, cheapening all the rest. Literally monumental inflation!

“…destroyed 11 homes and claimed the life of war hero and celebrated pilot Steve Askin.

“The fires, which started on February 13, covered 1645 hectares and took 66 days to fully extinguish.”- Port Hills fire memorial mooted; Stuff

A memorial to the 2017 Port Hills fires would be a sort of positive version of telishment (Rawls) to make a few people feel better in the moment. Happens all the time. Go for it if it floats your boat.

Does the 1954 Balmoral Forest Fire (also Canterbury) have a memorial? I doubt it. Yet it stands as the second largest plantation fire in NZ, the largest for a state or government owned exotic forest. Private persons, farmers, had to risk harm to themselves and their own resources to put that fire out. These days the State has an incredible bureaucracy in place that makes anything catching fire only the start of the problem².

—

1 Ref. Wiki

2 Ref. Port Hills fires, one year on: ‘You’d think they would try to help us out‘; Stuff

Image ref. Ross Younger; Crazyscot; Wiki; Ibid

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