In New Zealand, forests are burning in the national park where The Lord of the Rings was filmed
9 November 2025 17:05
Forests are burning in the Tongariro National Park in New Zealand, where scenes of the movie “The Lord of the Rings” were filmed, RNZ reports, "Komersant Ukrainian".
According to a media source, the fire has engulfed forests over an area of 2500 hectares and has been unable to be extinguished for more than a day. Only 20% of the total fire area has been localized.
The New Zealand Fire Service reported that earlier on Sunday, November 9, residents of the village of Wakapapa, which serves as a kind of gateway to Tongariro, were warned of a possible evacuation. The village is home to 36 people.
Dozens of tourists were also evacuated from the park that day. According to one of them, who was evacuated from Mount Tongariro, “when the ash started falling from the sky, he thought the world was ending,” The New Zealand Herald reports.
According to local residents, the fire reached 30 meters in height in some places. As Sam Carlton, the owner of one of the resorts, said, the raging fire looked like “a hellscape”. “Welcome to Mordor,” he said, as quoted by RNZ.
The firefighting operation involves 12 helicopters, five airplanes and four ground fire brigades.
The Ngauruhoe and Ruapehu volcanoes in Tongariro were used as locations for The Lord of the Rings. New Zealand is the birthplace of the director of the movie trilogy, Peter Jackson.
