Firefighters have spent the morning digging out hotspots in two areas of the Black Jack fireground that were pinpointed by Fire and Emergency NZ's drone team last night.

As each deepseated fire is exposed, helicopters with monsoon buckets drop water to extinguish the burning vegetation, which includes large logs.

Incident Controller Shane Bromley said that the crews were working carefully on steep terrain above Black Jack Road, and described it as "slow going". Traffic management is in place: the road opens for 15 minutes every hour on the hour.

This afternoon the firefighters will switch to patrolling the fireground, monitoring for any signs of flare-ups as strengthening winds, higher temperatures and lower relative humidity will all increase the chance of increased fire behaviour.

There are five crews operating today, supported by two helicopters and an incident management team.

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