By Harriet Alexander
Nearly 100 fires blackened parts of the Mid North Coast, scorched the outskirts of Sydney and destroyed properties from the Hunter Valley to Tenterfield as the state faced the worst fire conditions that seasoned firefighters had ever seen.
But the worst fears of firefighters appeared not to have been realised late on Tuesday, with no lives lost and fewer properties burned than might have been expected on a day when temperatures rose well above 35 degrees and winds reached 80km/h. Most of the 178 properties lost to fires were burnt last week.
By the time the southerly change roared through Sydney about 7pm, up to 15 emergency warnings had been issued for residents in the path of out-of-control fires and homes in the Hunter Valley and near Taree had been destroyed.
Temperatures dropped as the southerly hit, but Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said the state was not yet out of the woods with hot, dry and windy conditions predicted for Friday and over the weekend. One fire alone, west of Coffs Harbour, was 150,000 hectares in size, with a perimeter of 1000 kilometres.
"So we've really got a long way to go," Commissioner Fitzsimmons said. "You can guarantee we're not going to be able to get around all of these fires before the next wave of bad weather.
"Unfortunately there’s no meaningful reprieve. There’s no rainfall in this change and we’re going to continue to have warm dry conditions dominating in the days and weeks ahead.
Fire crews tackle flare ups on the Hillville blaze. Credit: Dean Sewell
"It’s going to be a long, difficult fire season and we have the worst of our conditions typically ahead of us as we come into the months of summer."
Two fires were still burning at emergency warning level early on Wednesday: the Liberation Trail fire in the Coutts Crossing, Coramba, Nana Glen and Glenreagh areas; and the Rumba Dump and HillVille Road fires in the Wingham, Taree and Nabiac areas.
The RFS said at 5.30am on Wednesday there were 73 fires burning across NSW, of which 37 were yet to be contained.
A fire near Field of Mars Avenue at South Turramurra.Credit: Louise Kennerley
Commissioner Fitzsimmons said a fire in the Royal National Park at Loftus was "clearly suspicious".
The Commissioner said the fire had "multiple ignitions", and crews from the RFS, Fire and Rescue NSW and NSW Parks were on the scene on Tuesday night fighting the blaze.
An earlier fire at Turramurra on Sydney's north shore was also under investigation, police said.
An RFS aircraft was diverted from fires burning to the north to douse the flames threatening homes that bordered bushland in the suburb, leaving homes, cars and driveways coated in a bright phosphate-based fire retardant.
The Minister for Emergency Services, David Elliott, said the total area burned through by bushfires was already three times the amount that was burnt last season. "And we haven't even reached summer," Mr Elliott said.
Fire retardant used on properties on Barwon Avenue during a fire in South Turramurra.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
The effort to control the fires involved support from the Australian Defence Force and reinforcements from interstate firefighters, who were housed in military accommodation at Cessnock.
The state had woken to the gritty stench of smoke hanging in still air, but the winds picked up over the morning and by midday, the wind speed over the ranges had picked up to 50km/h. Three bushfire emergencies were in place and residents of the Nowendoc and Mt George areas on the Northern Tablelands were told it was too late to evacuate.
"You’ve got very tight winding roads into a lot of these areas which is why we talked about leaving early as the safest option," Commissioner Fitzsimmons said. "The last thing we want to do is be managing mass evacuations in some pretty difficult to access areas and running the risk of having a bunch of congested roadways and seeing people incinerated in their cars."
Hillville fire reflects on water during the out-of-control fire on Tuesday evening.Credit: Dean Sewell
Countering the fires was a case of whack-a-mole. Fires breached their containment lines at Hillville near Taree, at Carrai Creek west of Kempsey and Llangothlin north of Armidale. The Llangothlin fire was downgraded to watch and act, but several more sprung up in its place. At 1pm there were five emergency warning issued. By 3pm there were 11.
Students were evacuated from eight primary schools and one high school in the North West and Upper Hunter regions.
Taree Boarding Kennels and Cattery owner Meaghan Lucas said she was beginning to feel persecuted by the fires, which had encircled her home since Friday when a blaze devoured 10 acres of the 15-acre property. All day they had been watching the Hillville fire, but it was the Rainbow Flat fire that sneaked up from the back and raced towards the kennels in the afternoon. On Tuesday night she was watching the Hillville fire again, with another eye on the fire at Old Bar. All the cats had been evacuated, but 20 dogs remained on site.
"I’m not a control freak, but I like to know where things are so I know how to react," Ms Lucas said. "It’s honestly the worst four or five days of my life. I feel like I’m in hell at the moment."
The situation was so volatile that Premier Gladys Berejiklian, addressing Parliament, said she expected more fires to reach emergency levels by the end of question time. Defence Minister Linda Reynolds began to consider the unprecedented step of calling up army reservists to help the Australian Defence Force respond to the fires.
Bushfires licked Sydney at Llandilo and Woodford and as deep into suburbia as Birrong, while grass fires broke out at Bella Vista, Blacktown, Homebush West, Wolli Creek, Warriewood and Vaucluse.
Paramedics were called out to 69 people who reported breathing problems over the course of the day. Four firefighters were treated for injuries including smoke inhalation, heat stress and a broken arm.
Several properties were destroyed at North Rothbury and residents along Wine Country Road were preparing to evacuate before the fire was brought under control.
Four people were charged with breaching the statewide fire ban, including a 27-year-old man who was fined $2200 for using a campfire to boil tea in a western Sydney reserve and a 35-year-old man who burned fence palings in south-western Sydney.