An incident management team from Fire and Emergency New Zealand is heading to Australia to help following widespread flooding in New South Wales.

Response capability national manager Paul Turner says a team of 12 people, including a Bay of Plenty person, arrived in Sydney on Monday afternoon to assist in a variety of support roles including operations, planning, public information, logistics, resources, and air support.

A second team will also deploy to continue support, arriving in Sydney on Thursday, November 24.

The New Zealand teams will be working two five-day rotations.

There will be a rest day between the rotations and a travel day on either side.

'Significant rainfall over the last few weeks has resulted in large floods across the state. On November 13, there were 89 flood warnings in place throughout New South Wales, 12 of which were at emergency warning level,” says Paul.

'Our Australian colleagues have been doing a fantastic job over the past weeks dealing with such a significant flood response and we're happy to answer their call for support.

'Deploying overseas enables us to support our colleagues in Australia, and provide valuable development opportunities for our people.

'It gives those involved experience in different environments that they can bring back home to New Zealand.”

New Zealand has deployed 64 times to Australia, Canada and USA since 2000.

This will be the first time deploying to assist a flood response since Fire and Emergency was formed in 2017.

Deployed personnel are from:

Auckland - 3

Bay of Plenty - 1

Canterbury - 1

Hawke's Bay - 1

Marlborough - 1

Waikato - 1

Wellington - 3

Whanganui - 1