Wither hills fire danger drops as rain brings relief

Fire danger levels at the Wither Hills Farm Park have dropped and the park is now fully open.

Rain over the last two nights means the fire risk has fallen and the popular park opened again at 6am this morning.

Council parks and open spaces officer Robin Dunn says closed signs are currently being removed.

“This week brought some wonderful rain across Marlborough, and it has been enough to sufficiently reduce the fire danger for us to open all tracks in the Farm Park to the public.

“The fire risk has now dropped below the park closure trigger point.”

The upper tracks in the Farm Park were closed in late January due to tinder dry conditions.

“We do still strongly advise park users to visit in the mornings only and stay off the upper tracks when windy,” says Robin.

“It will take some time for the hills to green up after a dry summer and so we do still caution users to take care.”

MetService meteorologist Lewis Ferris says since 3pm on Tuesday to Wednesday afternoon the station at Woodbourne recorded 24.8mm of rain.

“This is pretty well representative of the MDC stations around the area but the standout was the station at Boons Valley (Waikawa) recorded 54.4mm. Far smaller amounts made it as far south as Seddon as the rain was coming in from the north.”

Heavy rain fell across the region last night. Photo: Paula Hulburt

He says the heavy rainfalls last night had played havoc with MetService models – with a possible nine scenarios.

“I’m currently looking at there’s a spread of around 5mm up to 55mm for Blenheim alone.

“We’re forecasting another dose of wet weather late on Friday but it’s coming up from the southwest so chances are it won’t accumulate too much.”

But he says while the rainfall is a good start for soil water levels, more is needed to make a big difference.

“Rainfall events of 20-30mm are a good start but you’re going to need a few more of them in quick succession to see a real difference in the lower soils.

“We’re seeing a ridge of high pressure establish next week so it’ll be a dry one. Hints of a low pressure system to swing past at the end of next week but at that lead time the details are not well established.

“The following two weeks aren’t showing a definite trend but that’s to be expected in the long range.”