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The Inferno

The All Destructive Fires That Cost Canterbury Its Brand New Mountainbiking Haven...

By Blackaptur Photography

The christchurch adventure park

Christchurch Adventure Park is an mountainbike park in the Port Hills of Christchurch, New Zealand. Built by the Canadian company Select Evolution, it had its opening function on 16 December 2016, And the park opened to the public on 21 December.

The 358 hectares (880 acres) park with a 1.8 kilometres (1.1 mi) chairlift and initially 50 kilometres (31 mi) of downhill tracks is the largest facility of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere.

Two months later...

In the afternoon of Monday, 13th of February 2017 a small fire broke out in the Port Hills in Christchurch.

Due to the exceptionally dry conditions, this spread quickly throughout the hills and quickly became an extremely dangerous and out of control blaze.

By Tuesday the inferno had gotten extremely out of hand with the entirety of Canterbury's fire department and more coming from throughout New Zealand working on this with up to 10 helicopters working on this at any one time.

The park closed as a precaution due to a nearby fire but by Wednesday, most of the park's tree cover and trails had been destroyed by the large wildfire. The lift and ziplines had suffered significant damage, and the park's condition was much worse than the operator initially thought.

The remainder of the blaze...

By the time the fire had calmed down, 7 days later, the wildfire had consumed 2,075 hectares, 11 Homes and 11 Outbuildings... and the biggest of all, killed the War Hero and helicopter pilot Steve Askin.

The aftermath...

After it swept through, it left a trail of burnt, battered and black destruction and one destroyed Adventure Park.

10 months later...

10 Months later - on the 5th of December, the Christchurch Adventure Park has risen from the ashes and opened once again... providing once again the world class facility for Canterbury riders with chairlift access to quality hand built and machine built trails that are ever-evolving with plenty more trails being built.

This Photostory is a tribute to Steve Askin who was tragically killed in a Helicopter accident on 15th February 2017 and also a tribute to the Christchurch Adventure Park which has just been opened on 5th December 2017