Downpours help but states not out of the furnace yet

The Country Fire Authority expects fires to continue to burn over coming weeks, with forecast rain likely to only slow their spread.

Recent rains have doused fires across NSW and projected falls in Victoria look set to soak fire zones and cut roads.

Recent days have seen active fires in NSW drop by half, with 33 burning across the state, down from 60 last week, according to a Rural Fire Services spokesman.

The Gospers Mountain, Myall Creek Road, Erskine Creek, Kerry Ridge, Green Wattle Creek, Morton and Currowan fires have all been extinguished since Friday.

“We have seen a significant drop over the weekend, that rain is putting on the final touches,” he said. “The Snowy Valley and Tumut, they’re just getting the rain coming through now and there’s a good chance that number has dropped.”

He said intense cloud cover, rain and wind were making it hard to get aircraft over the fire zones to check for active fires.

The heavy soaking across much of coastal NSW has seen large numbers of firefighters mobilised, but only 150 of the 920 in the field by midday Monday were actually fighting fires. “The remainder of them are assisting SES with storm and flood damage,” the spokesman said.

“We’re likely to see the number of fires reduce, we are still likely to see some rainfall over the next couple of days — other than that, it’s a matter of monitoring and pat­rolling these fires.”

Three major fires are burning across Victoria amid forecasts of heavy rainfall in the state’s far east.

The Country Fire Authority expects these fires to continue to burn over coming weeks, with forecast rain likely to only slow their spread.

“To date, we have not seen significant rainfall across the fire footprint,” Victorian State Response Controller Tim Wiebusch said.

“However, while the lower end rainfall totals won’t put out fires, they will allow them to be contained or controlled by firefighters in the near future.”

Machinery has been positioned in Orbost and Genoa in East Gippsland ahead of potential flooding and landslides that could cut roads, VicEmergency said.

Fire danger ratings are forecast to be low to moderate, to high across Victoria in the coming days.

Two major fires in the Hume region were extinguished last week, but four small fires in peat near Cape Conran in East Gippsland look set to remain burning without a major soaking.

Peat fires are extremely difficult to put out and can smoulder underground for some time, releasing harmful carbon monoxide into the air, which can poison firefighters and local residents.