Australia Fires Circle Sydney As Temperatures Soar

By Staff, Agencies

Catastrophic conditions fueled massive bushfires across Australia’s New South Wales state on Saturday, with two blazes around Sydney burning at emergency level, while in South Australia one person was found dead in a fire zone.

Some major roads heading to the south and west from Sydney were closed for part of the day and authorities asked people to delay travel at the start of the Christmas holiday period, warning of the unpredictability of the fires due to high winds and temperatures above 40C.

A cooling but powerful wind with gusts of up to 90 kmh from the south swept through the state late on Saturday, lowering temperatures significantly but also creating risks that the winds could spread the flames and embers.

“Today has been an awful day,” NSW Rural Fire Services Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said of the conditions which were rated “catastrophic”, the highest level of danger.

Fitzsimmons said conditions in Sydney may not have reached forecast catastrophic levels, although they did elsewhere. He said the haze from the fires that has choked the city in recent weeks might have helped cap temperatures on Saturday by acting as insulation.

By early evening, six fires in the state were rated at emergency level, including two around Sydney.

Media reported one person was unaccounted for near Lithgow, a town about 140 km west of Sydney where a number of properties were burned.

Close to 100 fires were burning across NSW, and the RFS said some fires were generating their own thunderstorms. Conditions were expected to improve in coming days, before another burst of hot weather in about a week.