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Ricky Wilson / Stuff
Strong winds are hampering the efforts of firefighters who are on several fires in the south on Sunday.
Fire crews are responding to several rural fires in Southland, Otago and South Canterbury on Sunday, with high winds preventing the use of helicopters in most areas.
A fire and emergency watch commander, Keith McIntosh, said resources were depleted due to the large number of calls.
At one point in the afternoon, 37 fire engines and tanker trucks participated throughout the region.
Crews were fighting three separate fires in Southland at 2.30 p.m., two within 3 miles of each other in the Waimea Valley and another near Dacre.
Assistant Area Commander Deane Chalmers said the first fire in the Waimea Valley was reported as a hedge fire at 8 a.m. and that due to the wind it quickly spread 400 meters along the road to a barn and deer pens.
Due to the “determined efforts of the firefighters”, the farm house was protected.
He realized that arcing power lines had caused the fire.
By 2 p.m., the site was cushioned and crews deployed to the second fire about 5 km away.
It had started in a forest cut and was moving uphill towards a forest plantation, but the crews had contained the fire within a cordon.
The fire near Dacre, reported after 1 p.m., had burned a hedge and haybales, with crews from Invercargill, Edendale and Wyndham on site.
Near Owaka, two helicopters and four ground crews were fighting a fire that had been reignited after a previous rural burn.
And near Waikouaiti in eastern Otago, fire crews were working to protect a home after two workshops were destroyed by a fire that had started in a tree line.
In Canterbury, near Fairlie, occupants of three properties were preparing to evacuate as firefighters battled a forest plantation fire, which started around noon. More resources were on the way.
