Of all the deaths imaginable, that by fire is perhaps the most feared. In New Zealand, fatal blazes such as the Ballantyne's fire of 1947 or the 1942 fire at Seacliff haunt our collective memory. The Maori had used fire to clear the land of forest, a practice that was continued by European settlers. But it was the mainly wooden towns of colonial times that the story of fires and firefighting in New ZEaland really began. Well-known historian Gavin McLean traces the history of firefighting through the last century and up to the present day, and tells of the fires that have destroyed lives (mercifully few compared with deaths by drowning and ont he roads) and property.
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