Fire and Emergency New Zealand (Fenz) said this afternoon crews were continuing to work on the ground, focusing on creating fire breaks to limit the fire’s spread.
Crews were also tackling a second blaze, at Mt Gerald station at Lake Tekapo.
In an update this evening Fenz said the first fire - at Pukaki Downs - was contained but still burning and two crews would monitor it overnight
Fenz said it would escort people staying at Aoraki/Mt Cook out of the area this evening - if they wanted to leave.
Incident Controller Stephen Butler said this was not a health or safety precaution, as the fire was some way from the area where people are staying.
"But there are people who need to continue their trips or make connecting flights and we are offering to escort them past the fire area this evening if they wish to leave."
A Fenz spokesman earlier said helicopters had been grounded by high winds ahead of a weather front expected to bring cooler temperatures, less wind, and rain from this evening with snow tomorrow.
Butler said the Pukaki Downs blaze had been "unprecedented" due to its behaviour.
"I was talking to a couple of colleagues that have been to a lot of rural fires and they can't believe the fire behaviour. The winds are swirling all around - so not predictable whatsoever.
"We've had two wind changes - (one) last night that actually came in our favour - it took the flames and the direction of travel of the fire away from homes ... which was great.
"In saying that, the residents have done a great job of learning from previous fires and they have now given themselves great defendable space around their homes."
"So if the weather changes again - we're putting things into place because we're expecting it."
So far 165 hectares had burned and the fire had a perimeter of 17 kilometres.
" It's pretty big, yep. It's a big fire," Butler said.
Butler said speaking to media from Twizel was "starting to become a bit of a habit, unfortunately".
Power at more than a dozen homes near the Pukaki wildfire remain disconnected until it is safe for the network to be assessed.
Alpine Energy said 14 customers were facing a safety disconnection as requested by Fire and Emergency.
An Alpine spokesperson said they were holding off inspecting the network area and restoring service to these homes until Fire and Emergency provided the all clear.
Meanwhile, crews are responding to a second scrub fire in the Mackenzie district this afternoon.
The blaze, at Mt Gerald station at Lake Tekapo, was not posing a risk to property.
The fire was reported shortly before 1pm. Crews from Lake Tekapo, Ashburton and Fairlie are responding.
Tekapo residents are advised as a precaution to keep window closed becuase of smoke from the fire at the top of Lake Tekapo.
Rain is expected in the area this evening and snow tomorrow morning which should help to further control both wildfires.
State Highway 80 between Pukaki and Mount Cook remains closed, between the State Highway 8 junction and the Lavender Farm.
Butler said: "Unfortunately, we've probably upset a lot of travellers. People will be trying to get to Mount Cook and I know there are people trying to get out of Mount Cook.
"First opportunity we get, we will come up with a plan to get them able to carry on with their holidays."
Earlier today helicopters with monsoon buckets were fighting the Pukaki Downs blaze as high winds fanned the flames.
The evacuated residents are being supported by friends and family, and have access to Civil Defence Welfare support if needed.
No further evacuations are currently planned - and there has been no reports of property damage so far.
"We had a limited crew checking houses, protecting them on the right-hand rise of Mt Cook road," Butler said this morning.
"There are a few farm buildings we protected last night and some contractor equipment - tractors, dozers that we moved out of the way. So we’re protecting a lot of assets."
Firefighting operations were limited overnight due to weather conditions, but ramped up as dawn broke.
According to social media posts, the red glow from the fire in the early hours of the morning could be seen from as far as Timaru and Lake Hāwea.
Two ground crews helped monitor the blaze overnight and more are arriving this morning.
The properties involved in the evacuations are a mixture of holiday accommodations and permanent homes, a Pukaki resident told The New Zealand Herald.
It’s understood the houses are better protected than the blaze three years ago due to a recent clearing of trees near the homes.
Chris Rudge lives only 6km from the fires - based near Pukaki Airport and runs an aviation tourism business that frequently flies over the region.
"There were strong gusts south of Twizel which took out twelve power poles," he said.
"But then a friend alerted me to the blaze - all I had to do was step outside the office and look up the road, you could see the flames very clearly."
Rudge said the first reassurance to the Twizel public was the Pukaki canal, which acts as a "natural fire breaker" separating the blaze from the township.
Another relief, perhaps, to the evacuated properties is a recent clearing of trees and shrubs in the immediate vicinities of the homes.
"Of course, last time the helicopters saved the homes, but I fly over that area on a regular basis and they’ve cleared a lot of trees around the houses," he said.
"It provides a big buffer, so as long as the grass is short and dry enough there should be a reduced chance of the fires reaching the houses."
"[The service] works hard on people living in areas with lots of vegetation and pines around, that they do have adequate fire breaks," she said.
"Even yesterday, there was something in the local update about being sensible with fires in high winds."
Gunn said the Mt Cook Lakeside Retreat, which lost a gym in a previous vegetation blaze, has reported itself clear of any fire damage.
"They’ll be hugely relieved."
State Highway 80 from Pukaki to Mt Cook will remain closed between the SH8 junction and the Lavender Farm until further notice.
The fire is being fanned by high winds. Photo: NZ Herald
Fire ‘destroying everything’
New Zealand Herald photographer George Heard said the glow of the fire was visible from some distance away and high winds were contributing to the blaze.
"You can see the flames reaching 5-10 metres up in the air, whipping up pine trees and just destroying everything.
"The wind’s not slowing down here either. There’s a lot, the whole basin is full of smoke."
Fenz shift manager Alex Norris said the terrain and weather conditions made it too dangerous to fight the fire at night, but helicopters would be in the air at 6am.
"Crews have been standing by overnight, keeping an eye on it and seeing how it’s tracking, defending what they can."
Fenz is asking anyone in the area who feels unsafe to self-evacuate. So far, six properties have been evacuated.
Twizel resident Jason Swain said last night that even 15km from the blaze he could see it and the "sky is alight".
"Our house, we’re on the south end of town, so we’re the furthest away from it," Swain said.
"It might even be getting bigger than the last one which burned for days."
In August 2020, a blaze in the same location ripped through the area for 12 days.
It swept through 3500 hectares near Twizel and at its peak, 150 firefighters worked to control it, along with 18 helicopters and two planes.
More than $1 million was spent battling the blaze.
Heard, who covered the 2020 fire, said it was in "exactly the same spot and almost exactly the same conditions".
"It’s amazing to see all this willow burning again."
MetService forecaster Paul Ngamanu said there was a front bringing heavy rain up the lower South Island today but it was preceded by very strong northwesterlies.
Ngamanu said gusts of up to 140km/h could be expected in exposed areas, while a weather station in more-sheltered Pukaki had measured gusts of around 60km/h.
"I think the main factor of this fire will be those winds because it’s quite a warm northwesterly wind, it’s quite dry, quite warm - [great] for creating fires."
The wind wasn’t expected to ease off until later this afternoon but the rain could help the situation, he said. Heading into Friday the winds would change direction, with Metservice predicting snow in the area.
Crews kept busy across the South
Further south, firefighters were attempting to contain a fire near Hindon, which started late afternoon.
The fire was deep-seated in logs and slash, Fenz said.
"The command unit was sent up there around 6pm, but due to the high winds, crews were struggling even to just have a place to set up base," the spokesman said.
Fire crews from Mosgiel, Outram, Wakari, Dunedin and Waihola were fighting the blaze and trying to keep it contained throughout the night.
"Once slash fires get going, they become quite hard to control, so we try to contain them as much as possible and monitor them.
"They've made pretty good progress, but with the high winds it may cause the plans to change a bit."
A burning hedge next to State Highway 1 closed the road at Hook, between Lower Hook Rd and Kingsbury Rd, for around four hours yesterday.
The fire was extinguished but some hot spots flared up again due to high winds around 7.30pm.
"We will have a few more crews check there throughout the night and see how we go," the Fenz spokesman said.
"The strong winds just mean we have to keep an eye on things.
"It does make it hard to make sure they are fully extinguished."
High winds throughout Otago and Southland kept firefighters busy attending to a steady stream of call outs, involving loose roofing sheets and tiles and many small hedge fires.
Crews in Southland had to deal with several small bush fires caused by flare ups of controlled burns and hotspots from previous burns being fanned by the strong winds.
"People need to take caution when the winds are flaring up to check the weather if they are doing any controlled burns, because a couple of days afterwards some of the burns are still pretty hot and the winds can get them started again.
"It looks like it is definitely starting to get into the fire season for us," the spokesman said.
The Middlemarch Volunteer Fire Brigade on their Facebook page posted they had eight callouts yesterday; more than they had had for the entire year.
"Our volunteers have been on the go, climbing on roofs, strapping down sheds, extinguishing fires, all while running on a scone and a cuppa from this morning."
While the weather appeared wild yesterday, MetService meteorologist Andrew James said worse was to come today.
As the front moved over the South last night, it brought heavy rain to Fiordland, which was expected to spread over much of Southland and Otago today.
Before things took a turn for the wild, Dunedin residents experienced temperatures topping 25°C at 1pm.
Usually, the climate average for the city in September was 14°C, MetService meteorologist Andrew James said.
"It was certainly very warm for Dunedin for this time of year.
"But that’s not the story for very long. We’ve got cold air on the way later in the week."
MetService meteorologist Clare O’Connor said the front would be "unwelcome news for farmers in the middle of the lambing and calving seasons, and anyone travelling in these areas".
"This is a significant event, and particularly impactful for the rural community given the time of the year."
She urged farmers to prepare lambing and calving stock for the change by placing them in sheltered areas.
- Additional reporting RNZ/Laine Priestley & John Lewis
