Old wooden buildings and books were a highly combustible combination, and many colonial library collections went up in flames. When a great fire swept through most of Parliament Buildings in 1907, the General Assembly Library had a narrow escape.
From 1840 until the first decades of the 20th century, mass burn-offs were a feature of farm land development. By 1920 the farm land area of New Zealand had reached its peak although fields of blackened stumps remained a feature for many decades.
