A forest fire in North Canterbury has more than doubled in size overnight, with severe gales forecast for Canterbury high country threatening further spread.
Firefighters stayed on the scene overnight, where the blaze went from 40ha to 85ha.
The fire has been burning since Thursday night, through large swathes of pine forest in Waipara.
Incident controller Des Irving told the Herald: “The forecast for the next few days is not looking good for us.”
“The forecast is for strong, gusting wind up to 95km/h, so we just have to be vigilant again,” he said.
MetService predicts northwest gales gusting 120km/h in exposed places, with severe gales continuing Monday night into Tuesday.
Irving said there may be extreme fire behaviour at times.
Fire and Emergency NZ (Fenz) was monitoring the ground last night and at 5.30am this morning.
“The wind gusts got up again and created more hotspots, so we’ve been dealing with those,” Irving said.
“We will have multiple crews on site today working on re-establishing containment lines. They will be supported by heavy machinery and five helicopters.”
Emergency services are asking residents and people of the community to stop lighting fires until the weather improves.
Irving thanked the Hurunui community for its help and support.
“A special shout out to the Waipara Civil Defence Emergency Response team who cooked breakfast this morning for our firefighters who have been working hard to get the fire contained and under control,” he said.
In earlier updates, Fenz said while the fire was visible from the road, neighbouring properties weren’t in danger. Irving told the Herald today there are no visible hotspots near structures.
“We were doing reassurance patrols last night using the drones, using the drones to do mapping of the fire ground and allow us to identify hotspots as well.”
Crews are expected to remain at the fire ground for the rest of the week.
Katie Oliver is a Christchurch-based Multimedia Journalist and breaking news reporter.
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