Scrub fire increase after tinder-dry season

Bone-dry Waikato is at risk of becoming embroiled in a Nelson-like inferno, Fire and Emergency NZ say.

And such a blaze could begin from a barbecue ember or a cigarette butt flicked onto the dried out land.

Even a glass bottle tossed onto grass can reflect sunlight and ignite in the same way that a magnifying glass does.

Waikato is seeing an increase in scrub fires despite a prohibited fire season, principal rural fire officer for the Waikato district, Paul Shaw, said.

‘‘Conditions are just getting extremely dry, so we’re nervous,’’ Shaw said. ‘‘The potential for it to get really really bad is quite high.’’

Shaw helped manage aircraft operations for the first week of battling the Nelson fire in February, which saw thousands of people evacuated from their homes.

‘‘It wasn’t nice seeing what was going on down there,’’ Shaw said. ‘‘And just looking up here at our country ... it’s just really dry right throughout our region.’’

Over summer, Waikato, Bay of Plenty and Coromandel saw the highest temperatures around the country in what was the third warmest New Zealand summer on record.

Hamilton and Tauranga went 36 days without rain, both experiencing the third longest dry spell on record.

Meanwhile, Nelson went 40 days without rain. It means every grass or bush fire poses a massive risk, Shaw said.

On Monday, a head-on collision in Otorohanga ¯ sparked a 200 by 100 metre blaze which quickly began to travel uphill. Taking no chances, a helicopter was called to keep it from spreading through the tinder-dry landscape.

‘‘If a fire starts at the bottom of a hill there and roars up through a bush, the potential is that it’s going to burn down lots and lots of homes. Those rural urban interface areas are quite at risk.’’

Still, too many people are lighting seemingly innocuous fires, such as rubbish fires.

But even authorised fires, such as ha¯ ngi fires or charcoal barbecues, pose a risk and anyone having a barbecue or similar should keep a garden hose nearby, Shaw said.

A prohibited fire season came into in effect in urban and rural areas on February 22.