NEW ZEALAND – Hundreds of people in the New Zealand city of Christchurch have been evacuated from their homes as bushfires threaten some suburbs.

Police were knocking on doors and evacuating residents as fires in the Port Hills continued to burn yesterday.

Civil defence said the fire was still growing and could spread even closer to residential areas overnight, fanned by fresh easterly winds.

The three houses civil defence confirmed had been destroyed were in addition to five homes that were razed on Tuesday and Wednesday – all just a few kilometres south of Christchurch’s city centre.

Two fires overnight night merged into one, which is now covering an area over 1850 hectares and growing.

Wildfires which have been burning on the Port Hills since Monday have been advancing towards the city after a big wind shift overnight.

About 450 homes have been evacuated.

States of emergency have been declared in both Christchurch and Selwyn.

Selwyn District Mayor Sam Broughton said conditions were right for things to burn and people need to be prepared for unexpected change.

He said changing winds made the fires unpredictable with the region being unusually dry for the past three years.

Smoke and ash from the fire has been blown across Christchurch, New Zealand’s second-largest city.

Broughton said displaced residents were staying at evacuation centres or with relatives.

“They need to look after one another, and make sure they have a place to go,” he said.

Phil Claude told Radio New Zealand he and his family ran down a grass track to escape the fire, which destroyed their home.

“I could see that the smoke and the flames were being blown right up toward our house and I just yelled ‘get out, get out!’,” he said.

He said he had been told his house was apparently singed but found it burned to the ground when he returned.

“We didn’t have time to get anything out,” Claude said.

Earlier, the fire service said the fire was not out of control, but Selwyn’s principal rural fire officer Douglas Marshall said things had got much worse in the past few hours.

Christchurch’s Civil Defence emergency operations centre has been activated to help with evacuations.

Civil Defence Minister Gerry Brownlee said he was unhappy with how unclear things had been, and said he did not understand why a state of emergency was not declared earlier.

New Zealand’s military has been deployed to provide water tankers and engineering equipment as well as firefighters and other personnel.

A helicopter pilot died in a crash on Tuesday while fighting the blaze.

The military revealed the pilot, Corporal David Steven Askin, had won one of the country’s top awards for bravery, for his efforts in Afghanistan.

A member of the elite Special Air Service, Corporal Askin’s identity was kept secret at the time he won the Gallantry Star medal in 2014.

He was cited for efforts that included helping save guests during the 2011 siege of the luxury Inter-Continental Hotel in Kabul that left at least 20 people dead.

“Corporal Askin was wounded by grenade and rifle fire, yet carried on his mission and rescued guests from the hotel as fire broke out,” the Defence Force said. - PNC