Port Hills and Wairaki Valley Fire Update
21 February 2024
Firefighters made solid progress today on both of the major wildfires in Canterbury.
Nine firefighters will be working through the night at the Port Hills fireground tonight.
Incident Commander Dave Key says the crews working today put in a big effort to eliminate most of the hotspots, and the overnight crew would continue where the day shift left off.
As well as the hotspots, work is continuing to completely cool one remaining skid site.
Fire and Emergency’s specialist drone crew will resume their thermal imaging flights tonight to monitor the state of the known hotspots and locate any new ones.
There will be 30 firefighters working on the Port Hills tomorrow.
On the Wairaki Valley fireground, three crews spent the day digging out and extinguishing hotspots close to the perimeter of the fireground.
Wairaki Incident Commander Des Irving says that the crews prioritised the hotspots that were within ten metres of the perimeter, located by a thermal imaging drone last night.
Tonight the drone crew will be back again and fire crews will return at 7am. The firefighters will tackle any new hotspots that the drone locates and will also concentrate on an area of bush within the fireground that is protected by a QEII covenant.