West Melton and Kirwee fires update - Tuesday afternoon

10 December 2024

Fire and Emergency will look to start scaling down its response at the West Melton and Kirwee fires tomorrow.

Incident Commander Dave Key says the crews on the ground at both fires today have put in a big effort in hot conditions.

"Today has been a hard graft with hand tools, getting in amongst the trees and putting out hotspots," he says.

"Tonight we will fly drones over both fires looking for hotspots and depending on the information that comes back we will probably look at reducing our crews tomorrow given the bulk of the work will be done by the end of today."

Both sites will be assessed over the next day or two with the hope they can be handed back to the landowners during that time.

Dave Key thanked the firefighters who had worked across both fires for their effort, and urged the public to fire safe over the coming days to give the crews some respite after a busy seven days.

"We’d like to remind people across Canterbury who have had fires to ensure they check these previous burns. We suggest to extinguish and rake out these areas.

"It doesn’t take too much for the wind to come up and fan those fires and blow those embers causing reignition.

"I’m always proud of the way our firefighters keep turning up to fight these fires. Morale is still high among the crews, but of course everyone is getting a wee bit tired, so it would be good to have a break from fighting these fires."

Fire investigators are working to determine the cause of both fires.

At Bridge Hill, work has continued extinguishing hotspots.

Further refinements to the two fire sizes have been made as follows:

West Melton: 137 hectares with a perimeter of 13.5km.

Kirwee: 12 hectares with a perimeter of 1.9km.