{"id":7650,"date":"2019-02-10T10:36:36","date_gmt":"2019-02-10T06:36:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/?p=7650"},"modified":"2019-02-10T10:36:36","modified_gmt":"2019-02-10T06:36:36","slug":"new-zealand-wildfire-thousands-of-people-evacuated-near-nelson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/2019\/02\/10\/new-zealand-wildfire-thousands-of-people-evacuated-near-nelson\/","title":{"rendered":"New Zealand wildfire: Thousands of people evacuated near Nelson"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"story-body__introduction\">Thousands of people have been evacuated from a New Zealand town as firefighters battle a wildfire stoked by winds in the country&#8217;s South Island.<\/p>\n<p>The blaze, which began six days ago near the city of Nelson, is now threatening the town of Wakefield.<\/p>\n<p>A state of emergency has been declared and about 3,000 people have fled their homes in the district of Tasman.<\/p>\n<p>Strong winds were expected, and officials warned that Sunday could be a &#8220;critical danger point&#8221; for the fire.<\/p>\n<p>Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said she hoped &#8220;the weather plays ball&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>The blaze is thought to be the worst forest fire in New Zealand since 1955.<\/p>\n<p>Nelson MP Nick Smith said the entire region was a &#8220;tinderbox&#8221; and its 70,000 residents were &#8220;on edge.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Twenty-three helicopters and two planes have been deployed to tackle the blaze. Rain forecast for the area on Tuesday is expected to miss the fire zone.<\/p>\n<p>Fires of this size are unusual for New Zealand, with local media calling it the worst bushfire in 50 years.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape no-caption full-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"responsive-image__img js-image-replace\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/624\/cpsprodpb\/344C\/production\/_105588331_nzfire_nelson.jpg\" alt=\"Map of New Zealand towns Nelson and Wakefield\" width=\"976\" height=\"549\" data-highest-encountered-width=\"624\" \/><\/span><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thousands of people have been evacuated from a New Zealand town as firefighters battle a wildfire stoked by winds in the country&#8217;s South Island. The blaze, which began six days ago near the city of Nelson, is now threatening the town of Wakefield. A state of emergency has been declared and about 3,000 people have &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7651,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7650"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7650\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7652,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7650\/revisions\/7652"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}