A large scrub fire which tore through 35 hectares in Hawke's Bay has been brought to heel.
Homes in Mahanga Beach were evacuated as the Mahia Peninsula fire took hold around 3pm on Sunday.
One house was destroyed, but the 40 baches which make up the bulk of Mahanga were spared.
A dozen fire crews from as far away as Hastings and Gisborne battled the blaze overnight, but were saved by a change in the wind direction one witness described as coming "on the wings of angels".
"It got to the road edge and 'boom' the wind changed and my god, everyone just put their hands in the air and clapped," holidaymaker Matt Shortt told Fairfax.
Fire incident controller Tony Groome says an excavator also helped prevent any further spread by cutting a "firebreak".
"We've got a firebreak right around the fire. We've been putting out hotspots, and today when the daytime guys come on, they'll carry on with putting out all the hotspots around the fire."
Helicopters with monsoon buckets were still working on dampening down hotspots on Monday morning.
It's not yet known what sparked the blaze.
An evacuation centre was set up at Te Ao Marama, a Gisborne Boys' High School camp facility at the northern end of the peninsula. The town's Rocket Café hosted firefighters who needed a break and a shower.
Residents were allowed back into their homes at 8:15pm.
"Thank you to all the fire men and women and members of our community for your support," the Wairoa District Council said in a statement.
Meanwhile further north, 70 firefighters battled a scrub fire in Pipiwai overnight.
Local Andrew Blake saw the blaze approaching and decided to evacuate his home.
"It was shooting towards my neighbour's house on the hill," he told Newshub. "[He] had to go home and get his wife and four kids out of there. It didn't look good at all."
The fire service is pleading the public to refrain from lighting fires, given the tinder-dry conditions. If you must start a fire, the least you can do is have extinguishers handy.
"The conditions out there are just so dry you know, and it doesn't take much to get a little bit of an ignition source, and away it goes," says principal rural fire officer Brian Cartelle.
Newshub.
