Plumes of black smoke rise into the air at Auckland's Long Bay Regional Park after a fire broke out this evening in gorse along a clifftop track. Photo / Supplied
A helicopter with a monsoon bucket is set to tackle a hard-to-reach cliff-top blaze burning in scrub at popular beachfront regional park.
Plumes of smoke can be seen for miles at Long Bay Regional Park where gorse has caught alight on the cliff-top track.
Fire and Emergency New Zealand northern communications manager Colin Underdown said the blaze was proving difficult to quell with trucks unable to reach the fire.
Firefighters have had to walk in and attack it with shovels, he said.
The alarm was raised just after 7pm.
He said firefighters were now counting on a helicopter to quell the flames before fast-approaching nightfall.
At this stage it was quite a distance from the beach and no properties were threatened, he said.
A local Torbay resident who was walking their dog along the beach south of Long Bay Regional Park said they couldn't really see any flames but there was lots of smoke.
"It was quite a way along the coast top where there's a lot of dry grass. It will be quite difficult to access up there," the resident said.
"A few people were looking up at it because there was quite a lot of smoke, but nobody seemed particularly concerned.
"It's reasonably warm and a little bit windy, you can see from the smoke it's a fairly brisk easterly I guess. It's cooling down but there's still quite a few people on the beach."
A police helicopter was also seen hovering above the blaze.
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