Rain douses bushfires, gives relief to drought-affected farmers
Ravaged by drought and fire, country towns across NSW received their best rainfall of the year overnight. The rain also doused a deadly fire that has destroyed 52 homes and killed two people but it wasn’t enough to extinguish the fires completely.
NSW
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Barren country towns across NSW had their best rainfall of the year overnight, although rural rainfall totals were dwarfed by Sydney’s soaked Upper North Shore.
The rain doused a deadly fire in the state’s north burning from Drake, near Tenterfield, to Busbys Flat, near Rappville, that has destroyed 52 homes and killed elderly couple Gwen Hyde and Bob Lindsey at Coongbar.
The wet weather wasn’t enough to extinguish the fires entirely but the flames are not as high and the fire front is not moving as quickly, according to RFS spokesman James Morris.
“The rain will ease conditions to allow firefighters gain the upper ground,” Mr Morris said.
Firefighters will keep travel in 13-tonne fire trucks to a bare minimum, so they don’t ruin dirt roads they’ll need on Tuesday and Wednesday when temperatures in the mid-to-high 30s is expected to fan flames again.
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Tenterfield had its best rainfall for the year, with 20mm, which had farmers Sam and Pam Sammut thanking God for relief from the intense drought gripping the region.
Helicopters fighting bushfires last week drained the Sammut’s dams, which have begun filling again.
It has been so dry in Tenterfield, the farming couple couldn’t find their gumboots this morning.
“We’ve had hardly any rain and non-stop bushfires,” Mrs Sammut said.
“I can’t remember any other year where rain clouds would gather and then just blow away, so we thank God for this rain.”
The showers and thunderstorms were isolated and in some cases only falling on one half of a country town, according to meteorologist Rosemary Barr from the Bureau of Meteorology.
At Bathurst, where rain fell during qualifying for the Bathurst 1000 supercars race at Mount Panorama, the airport received 16mm overnight but the western suburbs had just 1.4mm.
At Wellington, near Dubbo, there was 25mm overnight but Dubbo received less than a millimetre.
“Fairly active showers and a few thunderstorms meant rainfall totals were varied,” Ms Barr said.
“Plenty of places received 15mm to 25mm but plenty of places in the state’s south and along the western slopes received 5mm or less.
“Quite a lot of the west and far west of the state remained pretty dry.”
In Sydney, 52mm of rainfall bucketed down over St Ives and 38mm fell in the Blue Mountains at Katoomba but Blacktown only record 6mm.
Originally published as Rain douses bushfires, gives relief to drought-affected farmers