A scrub fire at a Bay of Plenty beach took firefighters several hours to put out.

A large blaze broke out on the beach at Walkers Road in Matata, just after 12.30pm on Monday.

A Fire and Emergency spokesperson says the fire was 20m by 100m.

The Matata Volunteer Fire Brigade dispatched MATA941 and MATA9433 with six volunteers on board.

'It became obvious pretty quickly from the smoke that this was a bigger fire and we then also asked for a tanker from Edgecumbe and a rural fire team with a 4 x 4 truck,” says a post on the volunteer fire brigade's Facebook page.

'We couldn't get access with our urban truck so our volunteers took a range of handtools and set to work on trying to contain the fire.

'They worked hard for an hour to get the fire beaten down, just in time for the rural team to arrive with the Edgecumbe tanker.

'The next phase was to pull out a heap of hose and get water onto the smouldering area and stop any flare up's from happening.”

Teams stayed on scene until 5pm to make sure the fire was completely out.

'This was hard doing for all concerned and a big thank you for your help.”