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New Zealand Fire and Emergency Watch Region 5 Commander Keith McIntosh said the regional coordination center was put into operation to monitor the situation after the large number of calls.
Fire permits have been suspended throughout Otago, and people shouldn’t even think about lighting new fires, McIntosh said.
He asked people to check old fire sites on his properties to make sure they were completely out.
Before the hot and windy conditions subsided around 3 p.m., 37 ordnance and tanker trucks were in the field simultaneously fighting fires.
High winds prevented the helicopters from being used to fight most of the fires, he said.
At 2.30pm, crews were fighting three different fires in Southland, two within 3 miles of each other in the Waimea Valley, and another near Dacre.
Assistant Area Commander Deane Chalmers said the Waimea Valley fire was reported in a hedge at 8 a.m. and that due to the wind, it quickly spread 400 meters along the edge of the road to a hay barn and deer pens.
The property of the farm, including the farmhouse, was saved thanks to the work of firefighters and five appliances and six tanker trucks in the fire.
He said he believed the power lines formed between each other caused the fire.
As the site was being buffered at 2 pm, crews were relocated in a second fire some 5 km away.
That fire started in a logging pile and was moving uphill towards a small forest plantation.
Chalmers said that with wind gusts of up to 100 km / h in the area, it had not been possible to use helicopters.
By 3pm, conditions were beginning to improve, with higher humidity and lower winds, and crews had contained the fire within a cordon.
The fire near Dacre was reported shortly after 1 p.m. and burned a hedge and hay bales.
Teams from Invercargill, Edendale and Wyndham remained at the scene this afternoon.
Occupants of three properties were preparing to evacuate near Fairlie as crews of five rural and four urban brigades battled a forest plantation fire, which started around noon, said Deputy Rural Fire Director Ray Gardner.
Five household appliances, five tanker trucks and three excavators were at the site with more resources on the way, including the Timaru Command Unit.
The fire started in a forestry operations area and had begun to spread to standing trees, but efforts to prevent it from spreading further have been successful so far.
Conditions were difficult with strong winds and smoke.
Near Owaka, two helicopters and four ground crews were fighting a fire that had been reignited after a previous rural burn.
And near Waikouaiti, fire crews were working to protect a home after two workshops were destroyed by a fire that had started in a tree line.
