NSW fires LIVE: RFS issues warning for Sutherland Shire fire as southerly change moves through

Thank you for following our live coverage of the bushfires.

Here's a wrap of what happened today:

• Fire crews battled 300 new blazes on Tuesday. At the peak there were up to 15 fires at emergency level, but by 10pm that number had been reduced to nine.
• About 12 homes have been lost, taking the total number of properties lost to more than 170.
• While no one was unaccounted for on Tuesday, RFS Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said there was still some "very aggressive" fire activity occurring
• A southerly buster blew through and dropped temperatures rapidly on the coast, but the wind direction change could increase the fire danger in the north of NSW, Ms Fitzsimmons said
• Defence reservists could be called in to support fire crews on Wednesday
• More than 200 schools on the state's North Coast will remain shut due to the fire danger

The gallery of all the dramatic photographs from today has been fully updated, so be sure to check that out here as well.

Our coverage of the bushfires will continue tomorrow.

An Eastern Grey kangaroo licks burnt limbs after escaping from the Liberation Trail fire (seen behind) outside Nana Glen impacts properties.Credit: Wolter Peeters

More than 200 schools along the state's North Coast will remain closed on Wednesday due to the ongoing bushfire threat. 

Education Minister Sarah Mitchell said about 150 public schools and 19 TAFE campuses will remain shut, but said that may change overnight so people were encouraged to regularly check for updates.

Two public schools - Bobin Public on the Mid-North Coast and Wytaliba Public in the Glen Innes region - were destroyed by the fires late last week.

On Tuesday about 600 schools, 21 TAFE campuses and several universities were closed because of catastrophic fire conditions.

The last remaining residents in Nana Glen have come out to the edge of the fire ground, hoping to get an answer to what the fire may do next.

It’s harder to see the glow of the fire but popping sounds of exploding pine trees are traveling across the valley.

Many of the last residents have decided to stay because of the threat of looters.

“You’ve got to protect your property,” said one man. “I’ve got too many animals.”

Police issued a warning about looters in the area earlier on Tuesday afternoon, with reports of at least three properties targeted by a group of males spotted in two utes.

The Liberation Trail fire outside Nana Glen impacts properties.Credit: Wolter Peeters

RFS crews are still at Russell Crowe’s 400-hectare property in Nana Glen where they are putting out a spot fire.

Local RFS crews had been operating a staging area out of the property on Tuesday but have also been working to contain fire there since around 7pm. It is unknown how serious the fire was.

Crowe’s property is one of the main properties in the area that backed onto the fire that threatened Nana Glen on Tuesday. Aerial shots of the properties show a number of homesteads on the site, as well as swimming pools and a tennis court.

Most crews have emerged from the main fire front into the town of Nana Glen to stop for a well-earned rest and dinner supplied by a local cafe.

Firefighters take a break near properties where fire retardant was dropped on Barwon Avenue during a fire in South Turramurra.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

A 27-year-old man was fined $2200 on Monday for lighting a campfire to boil water for cups of tea at a western Sydney reserve.

He was one of four people to breach the state-wide fire ban which authorities put in place to tackle the catastrophic bushfires that continue to burn across NSW.

Another offender was a 35-year old man who burned fence palings in south-western Sydney. Embers from this fire caused a secondary blaze causing a risk to the public's safety, police said. He was also issued with an infringement notice.

One man was arrested and a juvenile offender was issued a warning under the Young Offenders Act.

Following these incidents, NSW Police reminded the public to strictly adhere to the total fire ban as fires continue across the state. There are concerns that winds sweeping through Sydney could exacerbate the fire danger so the ban has been extended until midnight on Wednesday.

About a dozen or more homes have been lost or destroyed in today’s fires, and while there were no lives lost today RFS Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons warned that more danger was ahead as the fires continue.

“We can't lose sight of the fact that there's still some very aggressive fire behaviour unfolding at the moment,” he said.

As of 8pm, there were 75 fires burning across NSW, with 10 fires at emergency level, 37 un-contained and nine at watch and act.

A building burns in the Hillville fire.Credit: Nick Moir

The fires have burnt through an area of more than a million hectares, and Mr Fitzsimmons is under no illusion of the task that lies ahead of the firefighters.

“The enormity of the task to bring these fires properly under control, to consolidate them, to get around them and mop them up is enormous,” he said.

When asked which ones we should keep an eye on throughout the night, he responded: "All of them. Seriously."

RFS Commissioner Fitzsimmons has delivered his final update for the evening noting it is still “very dangerous across active firegrounds.”

News of the southerly change, which has already started to sweep across NSW, continues to be an issue for firefighters. Mr Fitzsimmons took the time to explain why.

“The simple description is when we got very strong north-westerly winds driving fire behaviour, you get a fire that spreads generally in an easterly direction or a south-easterly direction and it's usually a large elongated firefront that moves out in that south-easterly direction,” he said.

Fire crews tackle flare ups on the Hillville Fire Credit: Dean Sewell

“The head is relatively small in width but the flanks of the fire become very long,” he said.

When a southerly change hits, that long flank becomes a “very wide progressive firefront” that suddenly moves in a northerly direction, pushing back against the firefighters.

“Historically, when men used to be the only firefighters, it was called the dead man zone because historically too many firefighters were killed on the northern flanks of fires in that southerly change,” he added.

RFS Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said the fire in the Royal National Park at Loftus was "clearly suspicious".

The Commissioner said the fire had "multiple ignitions", and crews from the Rural Fire Service, Fire and Rescue NSW and NSW Parks were on the scene fighting the blaze.

"We're working very closely with police and relevant authorities," he said.

The fire has been downgraded from 'watch and act' to advice.

The Rural Fire Service has warned residents in Kirrawee and Loftus they are at risk from a blaze burning out of control nearby.

The RFS warned the fire, at Farnell Avenue in Loftus was spreading quickly, and said the southerly change could push the fire in a northerly direction.

The fire is cuurently at a watch and act warning level, but there are reports residents at Grays Point were being evacuated.

The southerly has moved through Sydney, dropping temperatures by 10 degrees in as many minutes and bringing wind gusts of up to  70 kilometres an hour at Sydney Airport and at the harbour.

Temperatures at Sydney Airport fell from 32.7 degrees at 7pm to 20.5 degrees just 15 minutes later. At Sydney Harbour the temperature was 33 at 7pm, but by 7.30pm the mercury had dropped to 20.7.

A fisherman at Port Botany as the Southerly winds reach Sydney.Credit: James Brickwood

Senior Weatherzone meteorologist Brett Dutschke said the change was called a "southerly buster" because it was bringing "rapid cooling" to coastal suburbs.

"This southerly is really cleansing the air, ridding the dust, ridding the smoke," he said.

Mr Dutschke said the winds would die down overnight, bringing cooler daytime temperatures tomorrow which has been reflected in the reduced fire danger warning levels. A severe fire danger warning is forecast for the New England area on Wednesday, and very high fire danger warning for the Northern Slopes.