Fire crews will remain at the scene of the Waipara fire for another day with the site not yet ready to be handed back to the landowner.

The initial plan had been to hand it back on Friday morning, but Fire and Emergency Incident Commander Myles Taylor says this was not able to take place due to fire conditions.

"There is still a very active area in one of the skid sites that we are continuing to work to break apart and dampen down. Because of this, we will be working here into Saturday.

"We hope to be able to hand the land back over tomorrow, but this will be contingent on how much work we can complete in the next 24 hours.

"The good news is we have favourable weather conditions today."

Around 30 personnel are at the site today, supported by heavy machinery and water tankers, Myles Taylor says.

Around 20 personnel will work in the area on Saturday.

Open-air fire prohibition remains in place this weekend

Canterbury District Commander Dave Stackhouse issued a reminder to the Canterbury community that the Canterbury District continues to have a prohibition on open-air fires under section 52 of the Fire and Emergency New Zealand Act 2017 until Monday 9 September 2024.

"We have attended more than 20 open-air fires since the prohibition came into effect, including three in the space of an hour this morning," Dave Stackhouse says.

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"We need everyone to cease with burnoffs over the weekend as the weather forecast for Saturday is of particular concern to us with strong north westerlies and warm weather.

"If you have completed a burn before the prohibited period you will have to go back to check your burn piles as high winds could easily reignite these, and of course there can be no new burns this weekend."

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