High winds and very dry conditions fed multiple brush fires in New Hampshire on Tuesday, with no improvement in sight. Officials are urging people to delay any type of outdoor fires. 

“Even if you have a permitted campfire, use caution … the wind can carry embers,” said Dunbarton Fire Chief Jonathan Wiggin. “We need rain desperately – people have got to really be careful.”

Fire departments in the southern part of the state are no longer issuing permits allowing outdoor burning.

Dunbarton had one of at least five brush fires reported in the state Tuesday. The blaze covered about a quarter acre in woodland behind the town’s sandpit and took much of the morning to extinguish.

“A loader operator working (at the pit) noticed it,” Wiggin said. “Because of the wind conditions and how heavily wooded it was, we went to a second alarm just to get manpower. … Fortunately there was a water source – we could pump out of a wet area.”

Wiggin said it’s not clear what started the fire. Crews from a half-dozen neighboring towns assisted.

The New Hampshire Division of Forest and Lands took the unusual move Tuesday of a midday update to its fire-danger classification, raising it to “very high” risk for the southern third of the state. Central New Hampshire, including Concord, was considered high risk while North of the Notches was at low risk.

Southern New England has been even drier than New Hampshire since mid-summer. Massachusetts has been struggling with dozens of brush fires over much of the past month.

The biggest fir e Tuesday in New Hampshire happened in the heavily wooded town of Mason along the Massachusetts border. The first spread to at least six acres on hilly, hard-to-reach terrain, and went to four alarms, drawing crews from as far away as the Seacoast.

So far this week outdoor fires have been reported in Exeter, Belmont, Hampstead, Windsor, Lee and Nashua. 

There is no forecast of rain for at least a week in most of New Hampshire. As of mid-afternoon, no injuries have been reported from fires.