RFS still battling Northmead, Kenthurst, Blue Mountains blazes

Five areas will face severe fire danger conditions, while the majority of the state, including Sydney and the greater Hunter regions, will experience very high conditions.

Ms Reid said another hot night is expected on Tuesday before temperatures cool in southern parts of the state, including Sydney, on Wednesday.

“It’ll ease off on Thursday but temperatures will still be in the high 30s in northern areas,” she said.

Ben Domensino, a meteorologist with Weatherzone, said a slew of individual site records had fallen in recent days across NSW and South Australia, including new heat peaks for spring in both states.

“The heatwave is up there with the strongest” for any late spring, with the main rival being a belter in 2009, which set many of the records that have been challenged in recent days.

“As always at this time of the heat is from the north-west [of the continent], which acts as a furnace”, with the heat moved into the south-east by transient weather systems, he said.

Along with the forecast heat of 48 degrees for Tuesday in Bourke in north-western Australia, Birdsville in Queensland is on track for five days of 46 degrees, a run that has only been reached once before in January, or mid-summer, Mr Domensino said.

Sydney’s stand-out days on Saturday and Sunday were only the second such back-to-back readings above 40 degrees in more than 160 years of records, and were caused by westerly winds unusually keeping onshore winds at bay for.

“There’s the background influence of climate change but also the rare event” of winds strong enough to keep the seabreeze away for so long, Mr Domensino said.

At least 30 fires were still burning in NSW on Monday afternoon, with three to be contained after a heatwave and strong winds sparked more than 200 blazes over the weekend.

More than 600 firefighters and water-bombing aircraft were involved in battling blazes at the height of the weekend’s fire activity.

A home in Northmead was destroyed on Sunday by one of three major fires in Sydney’s west and north-west. The fires, in Northmead, Kenthurst and the Blue Mountains, have since been downgraded to watch and act or advice levels.

“It was an extraordinary weekend with some of the worst fire danger since last season,” RFS Inspector Ben Shepherd said.

“With those conditions, it was fortunate that we’ve seen limited damage and no major injuries.”

“The heatwave started to rapidly cure or dry out that grassland, which will become problematic later in the season,” Mr Shepherd said.

RFS Commissioner Rob Rogers encouraged people to report fires as soon as they see them on Tuesday and throughout the summer.

“Don’t assume someone else has reported it,” he said.

“[This weekend] we basically threw everything at these fires to stop them from taking hold and that largely worked. That’ll be the plan again tomorrow but we need the public’s support.”

Mr Rogers also said the agency is investigating a number of the weekend fires that “didn’t have apparent natural causes”.

Commissioner of Resilience NSW and former RFS commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said the 5.5 million hectares burnt last year only represented about 7 per cent of the state and warned against bushfire complacency.

“We’ve still got more than 90 per cent of the state that’s susceptible to fire,” he said.

“It was an ominous weekend, an ominous sign for the weeks and months ahead.”