Spreading blaze razes Enfield farm buildings

Firefighters pour water on a fire at Enfield, 15km inland from Oamaru, yesterday morning. Photo...
Firefighters pour water on a fire at Enfield, 15km inland from Oamaru, yesterday morning. Photo by Hayden Meikle.

An uninhabited house and two farm buildings were destroyed by a fire that started on an Enfield property on Wednesday afternoon and flared up again yesterday morning.

Crews from Weston, Oamaru and Kakanui were called again to the fire on a property on Battersby Rd at 7.15am yesterday.

Weston chief fire officer Bevan Koppert said they arrived to find a hay barn ablaze and two nearby sheds ''just starting''.

Firefighters managed to save the sheds, but the wooden barn was gutted.

Crews were at the property until 10pm on Wednesday as a fire, fanned by strong winds, gutted an old homestead and a nearby shed, Mr Koppert said.

It was believed the fire started from smouldering ashes left from a vegetation fire two or three weeks ago.

''The exceptional winds we had [on Wednesday] tipped it over,'' Mr Koppert said.

The property's main house was saved, but was without power as a transformer was destroyed on Wednesday when a hedge next to it caught fire from sparks blown 40m across the property.

It has been an exceptionally busy period for the Weston brigade, which attended five callouts on Sunday and five more in the first four days of this week.

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