Firefighters battle bushfire at Christchurch's Bottle Lake

Firefighters are responding to a vegetation fire at Bottle Lake in north-east Christchurch.Fire and Emergency (FENZ) received multiple calls around 8.30pm on Thursday about a fire on the perimeter of Bottle Lake.FENZ said three fire engines, two water tankers and a rural pump were at the scene, with the first arriving appliance describing the blaze as the size of a bus.It said the fire may have started on the beach.The blaze was not close to any structures, FENZ said.Earlier this year, both Civil Defence and FENZ warned Christchurch City Council that Bottle Lake Forest Park could be problematic in a fire.FENZ Canterbury district commander Dave Stackhouse told the August meeting people may have trouble escaping."We have an evacuation plan for [Bottle Lake] as well, but of course, with heavy fire loading driven by the wind conditions we see in Canterbury, [fire] just rips in pretty quick in there and it is hard to for us to contain that, because the amount of heat it generates is unstoppable, until we can get it controlled and pinched down," he said.