More than 40 residents attended the meeting organised by Fire and Emergency New Zealand, Emergency Management Otago, the Department of Conservation, the Queenstown Lakes District Council and the Wanaka Community Board at the Lake Wanaka Centre on Tuesday night.
The meeting was organised to discuss the increasing risk of wildfires and ways to mitigate those risks, prompted largely by residents’ concerns after the Ohau fire in October.
Acting Principal Rural Fire Officer Mark Mawhinney said there were more than 370 properties and 250 buildings in the Mt Iron "red zone" fire risk area.
Much of it contained highly inflammable manuka and kanuka scrub, many of the houses were built on steep slopes with limited road access and the mix of urban and rural recreational activity also increased the risk of a fire starting, he said.
Wanaka resource consents team leader Richard Campion said historically the district plan had been more about protecting the vegetation, landscape and the environment which made this part of the country so special.
"But now we, as a community, need to start thinking about how do we address the tension between the Resource Management Act and measures to mitigate a fire hazard," he said.
Other fire mitigation measures discussed included the council curtailing any future residential development on Mt Iron, erecting larger and easier-to-read warning signs at more locations and a siren for residents and visitors, similar to the one used by Fenz to call out volunteer firefighters.
Introducing a fire warning text alert that did not sound the same as her hairdressing appointment text was another urgent priority for one Mt Iron resident.
The resident, who did not want to be named, said even though Fenz had devised a Fire Smart plan for her property, her biggest concern was still the effectiveness of the present early warning system.
"When the practice text alert appeared on my phone, it came through just like my hair appointment reminder.
"It did not exactly light up and say there was a fire on my property."
Mr Mawhinney said the app they used was created in 2007 or 2008 and Fenz was looking at other options.
Towards the end of the meeting tempers rose, one resident demanding the council organise for "expert engineering advice on the fuel load that is growing on the mountain".
He said the council needed to have a planning process that was responsive and quick enough, "not tinkering with a few sites" and that it was "absolutely scandalous" the issue was not done in the last plan review.
When pressed for timelines as to when the council intended to make changes, QLDC risk and resilience manager Bill Nicoll said it was working with Fenz on ways to mitigate wildfire risks on Mt Iron.
He said if the council could also work with Mt Iron community groups that were forming "then we can take some of these ideas (raised tonight) forward, evaluate them and look at how we can lower the barriers to make sure there is peace of mind and risk reduction out there."
