[Source: 1News]
Fire and Emergency New Zealand ground crews are continuing work to extinguish the blaze which burned more 3000ha at Tongariro National Park after wet weather significantly helped efforts yesterday.
An observation flight yesterday afternoon over the conservation land found no visible signs of fire after rainfall aided efforts to fight the gigantic blaze which began on Saturday and triggered evacuations of trampers and residents, including in Whakapapa Village.
Incident controller Nigel Dravitzki told Breakfast that crews would gather again this morning to head back out into the field.
“Obviously the weather has worked in our favour here a little bit at Tongariro, so we’re going to ascertain from the data we did get from thermal imaging last night, the heat in the perimeter of the fire.”
He said thermal imaging was a “really important tool” to give an indication of the hotspots and where firefighters should specifically target.
“We did manage to do one flank and the roadside edge of the fire, but we weren’t able to get the other one because of weather conditions,” he said.
He said the wet weather helped control the fire, and ground crews would remain on the scene to fight while aerial attacks would be “minimal”.
Asked how long it could take crews on the ground to completely extinguish the fire, Dravitzki said the situation was “dynamic”.
“But our offensive aerial attack is sort of minimal now and will only be on requirement, but our ground crews will be in there.”
He said a small team of fire invetigators were working alongside police to establish the cause of the blaze.
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