Lack of rain extends fire clean-up effort

The back-breaking work will continue for Wenita forest crews as long as no rain falls at the Mt Allan forestry block after 820ha of land was damaged in a fire last month.

Rain had been forecast several times in the past two weeks, but had not eventuated, or if it had, it had gone around Mt Allan, northwest of Dunedin, Dunedin City Council principal rural fire officer Graeme Still said last night.

The hard work of digging up stumps and hot-spots would continue at least until "it rains a lot", he said.

This week, 24 Wenita firefighters and contractors, overseen by Mr Still and assisted by one rural firefighter, were still working at the fire site.

Mr Still said a group of rural firefighters was likely to relieve Wenita workers, who had done two weeks' "solid yakka", for the day on Saturday.

However, workers were making good progress and even without rain, the effort would gradually wind down and the number of people required on the ground would be reassessed on Monday.

Wenita chief executive Dave Cormack said a careful eye was being kept on the fire site day and night.

The problem area was now relatively small and the main job was to target the deep-seated hotspots.

A helicopter with an infra-red camera had flown over the site twice to identify hotspots.

Other forestry workers had this week carefully started salvaging undamaged trees from the site.

There were restrictions on work in the area and these could be tightened at any time, he said.

Both Wenita and the rural fire authority were waiting on reports which would indicate how the fire started.

- debbie.porteous@odt.co.nz