Wrong day to light 'heaps of rubbish' in Maheno

The Otago region has a total fire ban in place at the moment.

With fires burning across the region yesterday, one fire in the North Otago region was "absolutely'' preventable.

Weston Volunteer Fire Brigade chief fire officer Bevan Koppert said one truck and two tankers were called out to a farm on Kauru Hill Rd near Maheno about 1pm yesterday because a farmer had decided to burn "about six big heaps of rubbish, spread all around the paddock'' during a total fire ban.

It was a lot of people having to do work for no reason, he said.

"You wonder at some people, but that's not for us to say anyhow,'' Mr Koppert said.
"He wasn't supposed to be burning, he was burning, so we had to put it out -- that's all there was to it, straight forward.

"The guy was just burning off all his rubbish.

"It's a total closed fire season at the moment, so no smoke, none at all, not even with a permit are you allowed to. So, we had to put them out for him.''

The fire was unlikely to get out of control, Mr Koppert said -- "everything was sort of green around it''.

"But hey, you're not supposed to have fires going, people see them going and they complain, because they are not allowed to have one.''

Firefighters were at the farm for about an hour.

Further north, Fire and Emergency New Zealand (Fenz) received multiple calls to a grass fire at Omarama about 2.40pm in Sutherland Rd.

Crews from Omarama and Otematata responded to a 100m stretch of grass and vegetation on fire near buildings, a Fenz spokesman said.

No buildings were damaged. But the fire was found to be started from a spark from a grinder igniting "very dry grass''.

Shortly after 3.30pm Glenavy and Waimate fire crews responded to a 20m by 200m scrub fire on the Hakataramea Hwy near Ikawai.

Crews spent over an hour extinguishing the fire.