Fire bans are spreading rapidly across the Otago province, with the Clutha, Waitaki and Lakes District Councils expected, in the next few days, to join other authorities that already have prohibitions in place.
Some rain is due today and tomorrow and rural fire officers yesterday said the amount of rain would determine when bans were applied.
Clutha principal rural fire officer Selwyn Vigers said in his region there was still "a tad of dampness about" but he was monitoring the situation daily with a view to applying a total fire ban.
The "restricted" fire season already in place in Clutha requires permits for all fires in the open air except stubble burning, barbecues and cooking fires, although conditions applied.
Queenstown Lakes District principal rural fire officer Gordon Bailey said no fire permits were being issued in his region and a total prohibition was likely from tomorrow or Thursday.
He said the fire risk was "very high" in most places and "extreme" in a few.
A fire ban is now in place is Central Otago.
Rural fire officer Owen Burgess said the extra growth earlier in the summer had added to the "fuel loading" and was now presenting a high fire risk.
Mr Burgess said the appearance of the countryside was deceptive with hills that appeared to be green.
"But the green is a lot of bushy stuff, scrubby stuff that's sort of taken over since the rabbits haven't been there, plus wilding pine trees."
He believed it was the driest period Central Otago had experienced since the February 1999 wild fires that burned 9500ha of land in the Springvale and Fruitlands-Gorge Creek areas and destroyed two houses.
The small amount of rain that fell yesterday was mostly confined to the Dunedin area.
The city council's principal rural fire officer, Graham Still, said no rain was recorded in the Strath Taieri area.
He was hoping for "a bit of relief" today and tomorrow "but the long-range models for February are just for things to continue as they have been, quite dry especially on the eastern coast".
The fire ban across most of his region was likely to be extended, in the next couple of days, to cover countryside north of Dunedin to Waikouaiti.
The Department of Conservation has imposed a fire ban on all its land in the Waitaki and Dunedin areas as well as parts of the Clutha district and within 1km of its land.
Waitaki principal rural fire officer Eric Spittal said he was just doing "the paper war" for a prohibited fire season that would probably begin next Monday.
Mr Spittal said parts of North Otago were "extremely dry" while other parts were not too bad.
