Fire and Emergency New Zealand on-call region 5 commander Keith McIntosh said the regional coordination centre was brought into operation to monitor the situation after the large number of call-outs.
Fire permits were suspended across Otago, and people should not even think about lighting new fires, Mr McIntosh said.
He asked people to check old fire sites on their properties to make sure they were fully out.
Before the hot, windy conditions eased about 3pm, 37 appliances and tankers were in the field at the same time fighting fires.
Strong winds were preventing helicopters from being used to fight most fires, he said.
At 2.30pm crews were fighting three different fires in Southland, two within 5km of each other in the Waimea Valley, with another near Dacre.
Assistant Area Commander Deane Chalmers said the fire in the Waimea Valley was reported in a hedge at 8am and because of the wind, rapidly spread 400m along the roadside to a haybarn and deer yards.
The property on the farm including the farmhouse was saved due to the work of firefighters and five appliances and six tankers at the fire.
He said he believed power lines arcing together caused the fire.
As the site was being dampened down at 2pm, crews were redeployed to a second fire about 5km away.
That fire started in a pile of forestry slash and was moving uphill towards a small forestry plantation.
Mr Chalmers said with winds gusting up to 100kmh in the area, it had not been possible to use helicopters.
By 3pm conditions were beginning to ease, with higher humidity and lower winds, and crews had contained the fire within a cordon.
The fire near Dacre was reported just after 1pm and had burned a hedge and hay bales.
Crews from Invercargill, Edendale and Wyndham remained at the scene this afternoon.
The occupants of three properties were being prepared to evacuate near Fairlie as crews from five rural and four urban brigades battle a fire in a forestry plantation, which started around noon, Deputy Principal Rural Fire Officer Ray Gardner said.
Five appliances, five tankers and three diggers were on site with more resources on the way, including the Timaru Command Unit.
The fire began in an area of forestry operations and had begun to spread to the standing trees, but efforts to prevent it spreading further had so far been successful.
Conditions were difficult with high winds and smoke.
Near Owaka, two helicopters and four ground crews were fighting a fire which had reignited from a previous rural burnoff.
And near Waikouaiti fire crews were working to protect a house after two workshops were destroyed by a fire which had begun in a line of trees.
