No injuries have been reported.
The blaze comes as firefighting crews who managed to contain a large forestry fire on Matakana Island in the Bay of Plenty are spending their Christmas back on-site to ensure it doesn’t flare up again.
The fire began on Saturday night and burned through about 37ha of scrub and pine slash on the island.
Residents described the blaze as a “beast”, being like a “taniwha” and “really scary”.
In a statement released last night, Fenz district commander Jeff Maunder said helicopters and monsoon buckets, heavy machinery and fire crews would return to the island this morning “to work on extinguishing the fire”.
More to come.