90km/h wind gusts fan 129 bushfires burning across NSW

Almost 2,400 homes and businesses were without power across Sydney’s North this afternoon as wind gusts of more than 90km/h swept across the state, fanning the flames of 129 bushfires.

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There has been an increase in “structural damage” caused by bushfires in the last 24 hours as gusts of wind whip up more than 125 fires across the state and leave thousands without power.

The Bureau of Meteorology released a damaging wind warning for the Southern Tablelands, Central Tablelands, Hunter, Northern Tablelands, Mid North Coast and Illawarra districts early on Tuesday with winds expected to hit 90km/h.

Around 2,400 homes and businesses were without power across the Hornsby, Asquith and Mt Colah for much of the afternoon before power was restored just before 6pm. There are still 900 buildings without power on the Northern Beaches due to outages last week.

The Currowan fire in the Shoalhaven area is the only blaze at emergency level. Picture: AAP

In Sydney, the harbour recorded the strongest gust at 78/km at 2pm.

Stronger winds, with gusts up to 90km/hour, fed 129 fires burning across NSW but luckily they did not spread the blazes far.

“We have only seen a little bit of movement from the fires, which has been fortunate, across the fireground. The most movement has been on the fires burning near the South Coast,” an RFS spokesman said.

“In the past 24 hours, we have seen more structural loss. The majority of this appears to have happened on the South Coast. It is still too dangerous to send the building impact inspectors in.

SAFETY ALERT:
As winds pick up we're seeing damaged trees coming down on powerlines causing new outages. Crews have isolated this powerline damaged by a falling tree on Dumaresq Street in Gordon this afternoon. Stay at least 8metres away from fallen wires and call us on 131388. pic.twitter.com/WxbjlOUqr3

— Ausgrid (@Ausgrid) December 2, 2019

“We need to figure out what has been destroyed, whether it is homes or outhouses, and we have only been able to get information from the aerial cameras.”

The RFS would not confirm the number of structures, believed to be damaged, or whether they were homes as it was “too early to say”.

Smoke is seen as a fire continues to burn in Katoomba, Blue Mountains. Picture: Jeremy Piper

The Blue Mountains fire on Sunday night. Picture: Hazelbrook Rural Fire Brigade

There are currently more than 2000 RFS staff on the ground fighting the fires.

Two million hectares of country has been burnt since July with more than 7000 fires raging across the state in the “most challenging bushfire season ever”.

Six people have died while 673 homes and 1400 other buildings have been destroyed.

The Bureau of Meteorology expects winds to drop off but conditions will still remain dangerous.

“The wind is dropping on Monday evening and will be around 15km to 25km in Sydney around sunrise on Tuesday,” BoM forecaster Schuang Wang said.

A line of fire in the Blue Mountains last night. Picture: Hazelbrook Rural Fire Brigade

“They will remain as a westerly but temperatures will increase across the state on Wednesday and Thursday to around 28C or even 30C in some parts.”

Thousands of homes have been left without power as the strong winds compound woes for Ausgrid.

Technicians are still in the midst of repairing lines that impacted 52,000 homes last week when “cyclone-like” conditions hit.

“We have emergency crews out there working to restore the power this afternoon. The damage is not on par with last week but we are seeing trees that were damaged last week come down,” an Ausgrid spokesman said.

“We’re reminding people to stay clear of fallen trees and if you do see wires stay 8m back and call us on 13 13 88.”