Fire and Emergency staff were out at first light this morning to assess the progress of a massive fire in Southland.
The fire, at Awarua, south of Invercargill, has burned through a thousand hectares of manuka scrub and peat soils.
More than a dozen firefighters have been on the ground along with nine helicopters with monsoon buckets in the air.
Incident controller Mark Mawhinney spoke to Corin Dann.
