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Armed police have surrounded a rural Otago house after tracking down a man believed to have had a number of guns. 

Officers were involved a wide manhunt across the region yesterday, seeking a man “in relation to alleged firearms offending in the Clutha area”. 

Last night, they tracked a man to a house on Hunt Rd, 5km north of the settlement of Owaka. 

Police say they have “engaged in dialogue” with the man who is believed to be alone. 

“The situation is contained and there is currently no risk to the public,” police said shortly before 9pm yesterday. 

There was large police activity in the area, which is largely rolling hills and farmland, this morning. 

Police responded to reports of a man with firearms near Owaka township in rural Otago. Photo / Ben Tomsett 

Donald ‘Mack’ McIntosh, who lives in Tawanui near Owaka, told the Otago Daily Times about a strange encounter with someone he believes in the man at the centre of the stand-ff. 

He said that late on Monday night a van came up his driveway and a man wanted petrol. 

“I just thought to myself, the sooner [he’s] gone, the better,” McIntosh told the ODT. 

“He seemed just an affable, quite likeable sort of guy with a story that just didn’t gel.” 

The following morning, McIntosh told the ODT, he drove past the man’s van lying on its side on a winding section of a road near Tawanui and saw a police officer removing “about a dozen” rifles and firearm bolts from it.