Residents evacuated as wild fire burns on Chatham Island can return home

Residents who were evacuated overnight from their Chatham Island homes as wild fires burned have been told it is safe to return for now.

The island's civil defence emergency management team posted on Facebook at 7am that it was safe for the 19 households on Waitangi Wharf-Owhenga Rd who had been told to leave their homes last night, to return this morning due to favourable weather.

"Due to lower humidity and some steady rain overnight the evacuation has been lifted...Those people who evacuated you are safe to return home at this time," the post said.

Residents were warned that wind and temperature changes might force further evacuations.

Fire and Emergency senior rural communications adviser Joss Debreceny said fire conditions had eased overnight thanks to rain.

An expected southerly change did come through overnight but a lack of wind strength meant evacuated residents could go home, he said.

An incident management team had arrived on the island and were assessing conditions to ascertain the best way to fight the fire and a team from Wellington were due to fly out at 3pm.

Further updates would be made available, he said.

Fourteen firefighters are due on the island this afternoon, including two teams of specialist rural firefighters and four incident management team specialists.

A charter aircraft is due to arrive with crew carrying fuel, equipment and supplies for a two-week deployment.

The Defence Force has also been involved, yesterday conducting a fly-over to determine the scale of the blaze.