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Story: Fire and agriculture

Canterbury fires, 1885–86

Fires flared across Canterbury in the summer of 1885–86. Valuable bush was burned at Little River on Banks Peninsula. A fire that started on 8 March 1886 near Waipara destroyed 20,000 hectares of tussock grassland, and killed 10,000 sheep on Glenmark Station.

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Victoria University Press

Reference: Rollo Arnold, New Zealand's burning: the settler’s world in the mid 1880’s. Wellington: Victoria University Press, 1994

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How to cite this page

Robert Peden, Fire and agriculture – South Island sheep runs: tussock and scrub, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/zoomify/15217/canterbury-fires-1885-86 (accessed 4 June 2026).

Story by Robert Peden, published 1 March 2009.