Department of Conservation (Doc) Murihiku operations manager John McCarroll said he expected the fire would have significantly impacted the critically endangered green skink and other native flora which lived on the peninsula.
The peninsula also hosted native iris, a significant South Island fernbird population and regenerating totara.
"It is one of the largest flat coastal ecosystems retaining indigenous vegetation remaining in New Zealand.
"Not all plants will have been killed outright. Some will regrow as we have seen previously."
But they needed to wait to see what sort of recovery would happen naturally.
"We are planning to increase monitoring in coming months to try and understand the impact."
The land surrounding the smelter site is leased from and managed by Doc and makes up part of New Zealand’s conservation estate and part of the Awarua/Waituna Ramsar site which forms a buffer to Awarua Bay.
Doc would be working with mana whenua and other stakeholders to find out what work was immediately required and what needed to be assessed over the next 12 months.
Preliminary investigations pointed to a power line fault starting the fire that consumed the 1200ha conservation area, but the investigations were ongoing.
Inspection of the power supply lines to the Tiwai aluminium smelter was deemed unaffected after the fire had passed beneath the high tension and smaller supply lines.
Fire and Emergency New Zealand (Fenz) community readiness and recovery officer Sally Chesterfield said thermal imaging drones had been identifying hotspots for the past week.
"Crews were then deployed to extinguish hotspots to ensure they did not reignite.
At the peak of the fire, 10 helicopters doused it using monsoon buckets filled from Awarua Bay, while ground crews from around Otago and Southland mounted a co-ordinated ground attack.
Fenz was still calculating how much it cost to put the fire out. It cost more than $1.5million to extinguish the 2022 Awarua Wetlands fire.
- By Toni McDonald
