Ten kilometres wide, the firefront has burned through about 447 hectares of land.
The fire is still out of control and moving through Whangamarino Wetland, an important ecological area managed by the Department of Conservation. I could see the glow in the predawn from the top of our road, so decided to take a closer look. I was here at 6.30am, at that stage it was only 5km long and 80 hectares. It's an absolutely tragedy as the Wetlands house some rare species, including the endangered Matuku
