In past years, when the BUI alone was used as the trigger point for closure due to fire risk for reserve land, those reserves in the Very High category would have closed at 80, High at 100, and Medium at 120 (so long as the forecasted trend indicated a continued increase in the risk). I.e. if rain was on the horizon, we would delay closure decisions accordingly.

This pre-prescribed formula was a lot more straight forward to a) make decisions, and b) communicate to the public and other stakeholders. However, now with a more widely considered approach also taking into consideration other relevant fire indices the decision making process becomes more complex, but ultimately with more wins for the community.

This year has been quite different in that while the BUI has remained reasonably low, we still have a lot of super dry fuel, across all fuel types, and additionally quite different conditions across the Hira and Nelson catchments, thus adding to the complexity.