High Court finds Christchurch Adventure Park negligent and financially responsible for property damaged during 2017 Port Hills fire

Owners of property destroyed in Christchurch's 2017 Port Hills fires have won a $12 million-plus lawsuit against the Christchurch Adventure Park after its chairlift was found to have spread the blaze.

The adventure park, which is now majority-owned by Christchurch City Council, was found by the High Court to have been negligent and financially responsible for damage under the Forest and Fires Rural Act.

Council originally had a small stake in the adventure park, owned by Leisure Investments NZ Ltd, when it was launched by Canadian company Select Evolution in 2016. In 2019 the Council quadrupled its stake to 54.7% following a plea from the company for more investment, as it was struggling financially.

The original lawsuit also named power company Orion, claiming a power pole fuse started one of the blazes. Orion last year settled with the homeowners.

The High Court has found in favour of 80 plaintiffs after insurance company IAG led the suit against the adventure park following the fires in February 2017.

Five homeowners won settlements of between $1.18 million and $3.84 million, while the rest were awarded varying sums for the cost of repairing their burned homes.

The 365-hectare adventure park has a chairlift, zipline, and mountain bike and hiking trails though a plantation. During the fires, a decision was made to keep the chairlift running as a precaution to protect the haul rope from heat concentration - a step recommended by the chairlift’s operation and safety manual in the case of fire. Leisure Investments removed some but not all of the chairs and by early afternoon on Wednesday, 15th February 2017, staff noticed a chair on fire when it was coming down the hill. The lift kept running. Some of the chairs ignited and molten plastic dripped onto pine slash, causing spot fires.

Although it was accepted that continuing to run the Park’s chairlift during the Port Hills fires was reasonable, the case centred on whether Leisure Investments should have removed the chairs which later melted onto dry slash and caught fire. The High Court ruled that they should have, and there was time to do so.

The judgment stated that the park had also failed to remove flammable pine trimmings or coconut matting under the chairlift, noting "it was this newly-created outbreak of fire which caused the damage to the properties.

“This damage otherwise would not have occurred from the Summit Road fire, a fire which on all the evidence was being largely contained.

“As I see it, this was the same type of situation which might occur if the adventure park had kept and ignited a flammable rubbish heap on its property which caused a fire outbreak that spread and damaged neighbouring properties.”

The plaintiffs acknowledged that the adventure park was not responsible for the original fire, which had been lit near its boundary by an arsonist.

The first of the two Port Hills fires started in Early Valley Road in Lansdowne, and the second started several kilometres east on Summit Rd, above the adventure park.

The two blazes eventually merged and burned through 1600 hectares, causing about $20 million in losses including homes and vehicles.