Those close calls are thought to include a forest fire which threatened a house near Herekino on November 29. It was saved by volunteer firefighters and helicopters using monsoon buckets.
There are no plans yet for fire restrictions in the Whangarei and Kaipara districts, but principal rural fire officer Kevin Ihaka said he was "watching the weather pretty closely".
Mr Taylor said summer had started with a lot of wind and, unless a few tropical cyclones blew through, he expected a dry summer.
Vegetation was drying out faster than at this time last year. If rain came later, as it did last summer, fire restrictions could be eased.
He realised the total fire ban in Zone 1, the top of the Far North, would create problems for people planning Christmas hangi fires.
He urged anyone in that situation to call the fire authority as soon as possible on (09) 401 0723.
The prospect of a dry summer has prompted the Far North District Council to ban, as of December 1, the use of sprinklers and irrigation systems connected to its town water supplies in Rawene and Opononi-Omapere. Both schemes rely on small, drought-sensitive streams.
Research organisation Niwa, however, is picking average rainfall, soil moisture and river flows across Northland this summer while temperatures are likely to be average or above average.
The unremarkable forecast is due to neutral water conditions in the tropical Pacific with no sign of an El Nino or La Nina.
Predicting a season's weather is, however, a fraught business. Last summer Northlanders were warned to prepare for water shortages and extreme fire risk due to one of the strongest El Nino weather patterns on record.
Instead, despite a dry start, last summer turned out to be unusually wet with a huge dump of rain in early January.
The rain prompted an imminent fire ban to be shelved while farmers who had de-stocked in preparation for drought ended up with surplus feed.
- Call (09) 401 0723 or go to havingafire.org.nz for information about getting a free fire permit in the Far North. The Whangarei/Kaipara number is (09) 430 7707.