Some more odds and bobs.... In March 1918, massive forest fires destroyed pasture, stock, sawmills and property, and caused three deaths near Raetihi. There were record snowfalls in Christchurch in 1918 (only equalled in 1945). In 1918, New Zealand’s (and the world’s) worst recorded stranding occurred when around 1,000 pilot whales came ashore at Long Beach, Chatham Islands.