The Bay of Plenty, including Tauranga and Rotorua will move in to a restricted fire season at 5pm today.

A restricted fire season means a permit is required to light an open-air fire.

Fire and Emergency New Zealand community risk manager Luke Burgess said the recent warm and dry weather means the fire risk across the region has increased.

“In these conditions fire will travel fast and will be difficult for our crews to extinguish.

“Having a restricted fire season gives us greater control of who can burn and when, and we can provide direct fire safety advice to those completing burns.”

The public can apply for a permit at www.checkitsalright.nz

Burgess said although some isolated rain is forecast, it would be predominantly dry, hot and windy which increased the fire danger.

“We are asking the public to take extra care during these conditions.”

The restricted fire season would be in place until further notice.

The Bay of Plenty will move into a restricted fire season from 5pm today. The yellow on this map indicates the high-risk fire areas in the region. Image / Fire and Emergency New Zealand screenshot

Fire seasons

Fire seasons are used to inform people about the requirements for or restrictions on lighting fires in the open air, and to manage the use of fire to protect communities from the consequences of unwanted fire.

Fire and Emergency can declare or revoke a prohibited or restricted fire season in an area, and uses its fire seasons, prohibitions and restrictions policy and associated processes to manage this.

Fire seasons are applied to geographic zones based on:

-the fire environment (fuel types, curing, weather, topography, historic trends).

-fire climatic zones.

-topographical boundaries/features (rivers, roads, coast lines, forest and national park boundaries).

-fire control considerations.