A blaze in the Canterbury high country has been brought under control with the help of two helicopters and five fire crews.
Photo: RNZ / Richard Tindiller
Starting near Mount Lyford at 11.20am Tuesday, it burned through 500m of forestry slash.
Fire and Emergency spokesperson Andrew Norris said gale-force northwest winds made it a challenging fire to fight.
"In the initial stages the fire was burning quite rapidly up a sloping hillside and it was spotting which means the windblown ash and debris was being blown ahead of the fire and causing the fire to spread uphill very fast," he said.
The blaze was now under control, with an investigation into the cause due to begin shortly.