A fire breaks out on Auckland’s Mount Wellington

A bush fire has broken out on Mt Wellington in Auckland.

Three appliances are fighting the fire in Auckland’s East Maunga, said Carrin Larkin, North Shift Manager for Fire and Emergency New Zealand.

She still had no information on how big the bush fire was, but said it was under control.

Alistair Hayward, who lives a short distance from the mountain, said sirens sounding and flashing lights alerted him to the fire.

“We could see the fire from the road, it was quite big, it was surprisingly big,” he said.

Locating the fire proved difficult for firefighters, as it was only accessible via a steep mountain pass, forcing firefighters to fight the blaze from the road about 50 meters away, Hayward said.

“It was very close to a large patch of pine trees and it was difficult to know if those trees were going to go up in flames,” he said.

“It’s so dry there and there are pine needles everywhere.”

Hayward said firefighters did a great job containing the blaze, as a row of new townhomes could have been in the fire’s line of fire.