Gisborne
District Council was ordered to pay $875,250 for fire damage to a local sawmill
and timber yard destroyed after a fire illegally lit on Council land jumped a
small creek, damaging Jon and Margaret Gardner’s timber business.
Justice Thomas ruled the
Council liable in negligence for not keeping parts of a narrow strip of reserve
land free of combustible pampas grass and scrub. Gardners’ losses of $1.7 million were reduced
by half because of contributory negligence; they also did not keep their land free
of combustible vegetation.
The High Court was told
arsonists set fire to scrub on Council land in January 2010. The strip of land was no more than twenty
metres wide. Hot embers were blown
across a neighbouring creek, igniting bone dry vegetation surrounding the
Gardners’ timber yard on Awapuni Road.
The fire spread, damaging their saw mill, equipment and timber stocks. The Gardeners were making sales of around
$1.6 million each year prior to the fire.
Justice Thomas said the
Council was aware of fires being illegally lit in the area. In the past, Council had written to KiwiRail
demanding it reduce the fire hazard by trimming vegetation and removing pampas
grass in a rail corridor neighbouring the reserve. Council should have done what it was insisting
KiwiRail do, she said. Council did not
remove a fire hazard likely to cause foreseeable loss.
Double
J Smallwoods Ltd v. Gisborne District Council – High Court (13.06.17)
17.067