Dunedin, Clutha and coastal Waitaki moved to a restricted fire season from 8am last Saturday until further notice.
A restricted fire season means people need a permit to light open-air fires.
Declaring the fire season change, Fire and Emergency New Zealand district manager Phil Marsh said, despite some wet days, the more settled dry weather was drying out vegetation and increasing the fire danger.
"Previous fire seasons have shown that significant fires can ignite and spread quickly during dry weather, as is currently being experienced.
"We have high numbers of people still camping, and people looking to work on their properties which creates more risk, especially in partially rural areas close to towns where there is more vegetation and grass.
"Taking steps now to protect your property from attack by fire will go a long way to helping our firefighters if a fire does break out."
People can take simple steps to make their properties easier to defend against fire.
This includes:
- Clearing flammable material from 10m around homes and buildings.
- Moving firewood stacked against houses.
- Clearing gutters of dried leaves etc that will easily catch fire.
- Clearing flammable material from under decks.
- Trimming trees and bushes and removing the trimmings.
- Keeping grass short — using a trimmer with a nylon line is safer in these conditions than a mower or trimmer with a metal blade that could create a spark.
