Pretty Sally & Mount Hickey Fire Towers confirmed the smoke and stated the fire was building in size. DGO Boodle upgraded the tankers 5 to 10 and aircraft support responded.

Within 30 minutes tanker requirements were upgraded to 20. The fire was in a heavily treed mountain-side of Parks and private land with several farms and homes dotted through the area.

Dozers were called in as ground crews were unable to safely work amongst the trees as branches were dropping regularly. The helitacks were doing a great job from above but were unable to continue into the night for safety reasons.

Overnight, tankers were spread around the outside perimeter of the fire to monitor for hot spots until daylight when the helitaks would come back again.

Gisbourne ICC was setup to co-ordinate logistics and assist with planning. Alerts were sent out to allow residents to prepare and action their fireplans.

Crews worked day and night to try and have the fire fully contained by the end of the week, as the temperature’s are expected to be in the 30’s and the fire risk will increase again.

Firefighters worked extremely hard and achieved this outcome by Tuesday, and the fire was handed back to local control Tuesday night.

Hesket and Romsey Brigades will continue to patrol and monitor the scene through out the week to ensure the area is fully extinguished.