Strong winds and hot, humid conditions led to firefighters battling a spate of blazes throughout the South that compromised houses, brought down power lines and left people without power.
As temperatures pushed over 25degC in parts of the South, Fire and Emergency New Zealand (Fenz) crews were doing their best to keep them under control.
An assessment of the vegetation fire at Centre Hill in Northern Southland will be made as soon as weather conditions allow.
Late on Monday, Fenz incident controller Hamish Angus said it was raining steadily in the area, with very strong winds.
“While the rain will help in suppressing any remaining fire in the open country, deep-seated areas of burning in mature beech forest will need to be checked and any pockets of fire dug out and extinguished.”
The fire was estimated to have affected an area of 80 hectares, mostly high-country grazing and an area of native bush on adjoining public conservation land.
There were no reports of livestock having been affected by the fire.
Labour Weekend’s firefighting efforts were focused on defending the two telecommunications towers from the fire.
Mr Angus said the helicopter pilots did “an excellent job in very challenging conditions”.
Crews of firefighters from Southland volunteer brigades and the Department of Conservation are being arranged for Tuesday.
An investigation into the origin and cause of the fire will be carried out.
Meanwhile, fire crews from Lawrence to Alexandra converged to fight a fire threatening houses at Roxburgh East.
A Fenz spokesman said it received multiple calls about 2.45pm on Monday about pine trees on fire across the Clutha River from Roxburgh.
There were “quite a few” crews on the scene working alongside the Roxburgh Volunteer Fire Brigade, including firefighters from Lawrence, Millers Flat, Dunstan Rural and Alexandra.
Using aircraft to fight the fire was not an option due to the high winds, the spokesman said.
The Aurora Energy website advised 222 customers were without power on Monday due to a fire safety disconnection.
By Tuesday morning just 35 customers were affected, with power expected to be restored by 10am.
Further south, fire crews were called to a vegetation fire in rural Waimumu, southwest of Gore, on Monday afternoon after power lines fell in strong winds, setting grass and a hedge alight.
Fire had threatened a couple of houses earlier in the afternoon and the fire service worked with police on potential evacuations.
— additional reporting ODT Online and ODT reporters