Fire investigators sift through the ashes at the Corlett Rd fire site.

It's not all dash and splash in the fire brigade. Sometimes you simply have to hang around in gale force winds and light rain at 4am waiting for the power company to switch off the power and bring a Cherry-picker so you can get close to the top of a power pole which is burning brightly. Naturally you don't go throwing water willy-nilly over live power poles.

The twisted and blackened remains of part of Pacific Recyclers' plastics recycling factory in Otaki. The fire was extremely intense leaving only metal remains and a few bales of unsorted plastic outside the building.

Not a cat this time! A Plimmerton lad is helped down from the crown of a tall tree.

A typical summer occupation - chasing scrub fires around Pukerua Bay.

Scrub fires can develop from an even more common occurence - bonfires on the beach. The main problem with the small scrub fires is that, given a good northerly breeze, they can quickly get out of control on near vertical country and threaten the cliff-top houses.