What Happened and What the F*ck is a Rahui and Why does the Iwi think it will work this time?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On Sunday 9th of November 2025 (for context this is being written on Tuesday 11th of Nov. 2025) FENZ became informed about a large fire in the Tongariro National Park. By the next morning it was estimated to be around 20% under control, this means while they poured and dropped unknown Litres of water on it during Sunday and through the night they couldn’t make a massive difference, the fire kept chewing up the ‘native’ grasses trees and whatever else it came upon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Onto the current day – the official FENZ update #13 shows that there may still be a ways to go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n“The weather is perfect for fire suppression, no good for getting an aerial view of the ground,” Nigel Dravitzki says. “Once we are able to get airborne, we will fly around the full perimeter and get an accurate measure of the area. Indications are that the size has not increased since Sunday night but I won\u2019t be confident about that until we have seen it.” The last estimate was 2800 hectares.
– F.E.N.Z New Hub (Tongariro National Park Fire Update #13
https:\/\/www.fireandemergency.nz\/incidents-and-news\/news-and-media\/tongariro-national-park-fire-update-13\/<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\nNow to the real “issue” – and it’s not the cause of the fire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Rahui issued by the local Iwi (Ngati Hikairo ki Tongariro) <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Firstly though what is a Rahui?
A Rahui (in my experience) is an “Un-enforceable block on visitors to an area or a block on gathering something like sea food form a beach” (Spoiler this has not worked for beaches or estuaries at all in the past)<\/p>\n\n\n\nHere are the details of the two Rahui curtesy of TVNZ One News
(yes I Know, quoting MSM is not my gig but since I am not there to ask questions directly I have to deal with the second best, which is to trust that the MSM have got it right this time. Oh, hey – it’s a Maori thing so it should be fine, right? )<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe first r\u0101hui covered the Tongariro Alpine Crossing and would remain in place for a week, “allowing time for the maunga and its pathways to rest and recover”, the hap\u016b said in a statement.
“The second r\u0101hui applies to the burnt areas where the fires have damaged the whenua and native vegetation. This r\u0101hui will remain in place for an extended period to enable the natural regrowth and healing of the land.”<\/p>– One News Reporters (Monday 10 Nov. 2025)
https:\/\/www.1news.co.nz\/2025\/11\/10\/no-visible-signs-of-fire-as-crews-suppress-tongariro-blaze\/<\/a><\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\nLet’s Pick this apart as much as my “white” brain that’s spent all of my life in NZ getting educated in Maori can do.
The First one – a “healing” Rahui (Break from human interaction in this case) is to allow the Mountain and it’s Pathway’s to recover … <\/p>\n\n\n\nThe second – a “restorative” Rahui (basically the same definition as the first one) is to allow the native grasslands and vegetation that was burnt to recover.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The time duration for both of these is 10 years?!?!?!? Geez, that is a long one. Yes I know it takes time to re grow decades of nature’s hard toil, but there are a LOT of plants that thrive from forest fires – just look at Canada, Australia or the state of Nevada for how to deal with these kinds of fire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The plan should be as follows:
1 – Extinguish the fire(s)
2 – Extinguish the Hot spots
3 – Clean Up any buildings caught in the fire(s)
4 – Rebuild the Buildings
5 – Nature will re-grow in time
NO RAHUI REQUIRED.<\/p>\n\n\n\nBut oh no, NZ Maori have to be different, can’t follow what has been successful in the rest of the western world for dealing with these fires.
There is likely to be an update when they can get into the air and do some area measurements and assess the area for further hot spots and any major damage, although it sounds like mostly Trees, and Grasslands have been damaged this time.<\/p>\n\n\n\nI will be sure to bring you the latest update when they do the ‘fly over’.
Until then, Be Kind, Enjoy Life and Keep truckin’ along.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Sunday 9th of November 2025 (for context this is being written on Tuesday 11th of Nov. 2025) FENZ became informed about a large fire in the Tongariro National Park. By the next morning it was estimated to be around 20% under control, this means while they poured and dropped unknown Litres of water on it during Sunday and through the night they couldn’t make a massive difference, the fire kept chewing up the ‘native’ grasses trees and whatever else it came upon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":226,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[79,76,99],"tags":[96,95,97,59,98,94],"class_list":["post-225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-affairs","category-news","category-opinion","tag-fenz","tag-fire","tag-iwi","tag-oppinion","tag-rahui","tag-tongariro"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brycefromnz.live\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brycefromnz.live\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brycefromnz.live\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brycefromnz.live\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brycefromnz.live\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/brycefromnz.live\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":238,"href":"https:\/\/brycefromnz.live\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225\/revisions\/238"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brycefromnz.live\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brycefromnz.live\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brycefromnz.live\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brycefromnz.live\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}