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Monday, Mon, 16 DecemberDec 2024
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Crews still battling Waitaki fires, homes self-evacuated

Fire crews are this morning continuing to battle separate rural blazes in the Waitaki District.

Fire and Emergency New Zealand (Fenz) said the fires - at Nenthorn, about 30km from Middlemarch, and in the Earthquakes area about 7km from Duntroon - were reported shortly after midnight.

Three households near the Nenthorn blaze self-evacuated overnight and are not yet able to return, Fenz incident controller Bobby Lamont said in an update about 9.15am. 

He said both fires were now contained, but work to consolidate the perimeters and extinguish hotspots was ongoing.

No dwellings have been lost in either fire but a small number of farm buildings have been destroyed or damaged at Nenthorn.

He said that fire was mapped at 78 hectares of farmland during aerial reconnaissance this morning. 

Lamont said the Middlemarch crew, which was first on the scene at Nenthorn, did "an amazing job" to protect a house from the flames.

"One came very, very close to being extremely damaged so they've done a really, really good job."

Crews from six other volunteer brigades also responded, as well as the command unit from Dunedin.

Fresh crews supported by three helicopters were working at Nenthorn this morning, he said. 

He said Nenthorn, Ramrock and Butter and Egg Rds were all closed.

A fire investigator would be trying to determine the cause of the blaze.

The second fire has burnt about 30 hectares of conservation land.

Incident controller at that fire, Jason Sarich, said crews had worked very hard in challenging conditions, which included gale-force winds overnight.

About 30 firefighters and two helicopters were working on the fire this morning. They would be joined by two crews of firefighters from the Department of Conservation today.

Fire and Emergency’s command unit from Timaru is also at the scene.

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