The National Disaster Council has assessed the threat has moved beyond a potential hazard and now requires immediate protective action, including a total burn ban.<\/p>\n
It said there was an \u201cextremely high\u201d fire risk in Niue.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) has provided a 4WD firefighting truck and equipment.<\/p>\n
The C-130 aircraft also delivered a Fire and Emergency New Zealand team, personal protective clothing and drone mapping equipment with thermal imaging capability.<\/p>\n
Fire and Emergency national commander Megan Stiffler said the New Zealand contingent will provide training and technical advice to Niue firefighting staff to help them manage wildfire risks.<\/p>\n
The New Zealand High Commission in Niue said the Fire and Emergency team would provide specialist technical advice, operational planning, and logistical support to help manage ongoing wildfire risks. They will also support recovery efforts and strengthen Niue\u2019s future fire management capability and resilience.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis work is especially important as El Ni\u00f1o forecasts indicate that dry conditions in Niue will likely persist in the coming months, with the risk of bushfires remaining elevated,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n
El Ni\u00f1o is underway in the Pacific, bringing dry conditions to several areas.<\/p>\n
The Tonga Meteorological Service has declared drought across all major islands that make up the kingdom, including Tongatapu, Niuatoputapu, Ha\u2019apai and \u2018Eua.<\/p>\n
The World Meteorological Organisation said sea-surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific are forecast to increase to record levels during the last three months of 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The National Disaster Council has assessed the threat has moved beyond a potential hazard and now requires immediate…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":628146,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[74,1060,14146,23436,273,6119,29812,104674,111,139,304316,69,1118,147,1555,3940,4143],"class_list":["post-628145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-after","tag-ban","tag-burn","tag-drought","tag-environment","tag-faces","tag-imminent","tag-imposes","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-niue","tag-nz","tag-of","tag-science","tag-threat","tag-total","tag-wildfires"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=628145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/628146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=628145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=628145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=628145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}