Mt Allan fire

Firefighters are expected to continue working through Christmas to control a blaze which covers about 95 hectares of forestry on Mt Allan.

Hundreds of people yesterday waited patiently in a queue that stretched at least 2km along the road to Wenita Forest Products' forestry block on Mt Allan for a share of about 1000 tonnes of cut-price firewood.

The Wenita Forest Products firewood sale will take place on October 3 after bad weather caused the postponement of the sale at Mt Allan yesterday.

The mother of all firewood sales will be held in Dunedin this weekend.

The costs continue to mount as a large forestry fire at Mt Allan, near Dunedin, continues to smoulder underground two months after it started.

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.

Firefighters say forecast rain for Monday will help them fully extinguish the huge forest fire that has raged near Dunedin this week, as the bill for battling the blaze has passed the half million dollar mark.

Firefighters finally had a "good" day yesterday, managing to make significant progress in their battle against a large fire in Wenita's Mt Allan Forest northwest of Dunedin.

Just 20m or 30m above Mt Allan Rd, the helicopter swooped in, its monsoon bucket flicking the tree-tops as the pilot leaned out to peer at the smoky scene below.

Fire in forestry northwest of Dunedin was all but contained last night, but far from over.