Six homes were evacuated and one was damaged after a scrub fire burned through a rural Hawke's Bay town overnight.
A fire tanker monitors the area of a scrub fire in Fernhill, near Hastings on Wednesday morning after it engulfed trees late last night. Photo: RNZ / Tom Kitchin
Fire-fighters were called to Korokipo Rd in Fernhill near Hastings, about 10.45pm yesterday.
Multiple crews and a tanker fought the blaze, which was brought under control about 1.30am today.
A witness, resident Jesse Ferguson, told RNZ she thought the flames were only a passing truck until she heard screaming and went outside.
"I opened my door and everything was just red with embers anywhere. So I'm outside, I ran inside because my kids and that were in here, I freaked them out."
She got away quickly but managed to arrived back soon after, spending the rest of the night at home.
Fire and Emergency New Zealand Hawke's Bay principal rural fire officer Trevor Mitchell said a wall at one house had scorch damage.
No one was injured in the blaze.
He said the cause was still being investigated but was not suspicious.
He said it had been a "lucky" summer so far, with no big scrub fires in the region.
"We haven't had those very hot windy days, even though we've had some hot days, and a lot of the district has had those heavy thundery showers, so we've got some dry areas in the Bay but the farmers are happy, they've got plenty of green grass."