Weather: Heat set to raise fire risk and threat of power cuts

Scorching days and dangerous winds may bring a return of apocalyptic conditions that sparked fires across the nation.

Fires and extreme weather across Australia have left in A controlled back burn in Lithgow, NSW. Picture: Jeremy Piper

Extreme weather may bring a repeat of the apocalyptic conditions that left thousands of Australians across NSW and South Australia without power across the weekend.

A spokesman for South Australia’s power distribution network, SA power, said 1000 properties were still without power after recent fires but most would be back on the grid by Tuesday night, unless lines to their properties had been damaged.

Endeavour Energy, Ausgrid and Energy Australia said more than 900 households were without power in NSW. About 250 of those were likely to still be in the dark on Christmas Eve.

An Endeavour energy spokeswoman said they were looking at the deployment of diesel generators to supply people in Mount Wilson, Mount Irvine, as well as the Clarence and Dargan areas to get power into areas cut off by horror bushfires.

The Bureau of Meteorology’s Dean Narromore said the worst had passed from the latest heatwave but more scorching days and dangerous winds were set to come.

Meteorologist Mr Narromore said much of inland Western Australia and the Northern Territory would experience above average temperatures across the week, with a huge mass of hot air building over Central Australia.

He said the heat would drift across to Perth, raising temperatures by Boxing Day. By Friday all South Australia, much of Victoria, WA and the NT would experience significant heat, with some areas to suffer 45C days.

The hot air was then set to then push to the south east to cover all of SA, all of Victoria, and western and central NSW west of the ranges.

He said the change would slowly arrive in NSW, making a repeat of this weekend’s wind and temperatures unlikely. However, the risk of a flare-up on Sunday and Monday across NSW and South Australia were still present.

“It won’t reach Sydney until Sunday-Monday, moreso the western suburbs,” Mr Narromore said.

“The good news is there’s no big burst of wind this week, you’ll just get the afternoon sea breezes.”

Thousands of firefighters remain in the field across Australia, putting out and containing blazes as far afield as Kangaroo Island, off the coast of South Australia, Gippsland in Victoria’s far east, South-East Queensland and the mammoth blazes in NSW.

The NSW Rural Fire Service said all 90 fires across NSW were at advice level, with around 40 fires yet to be contained.

“We’ve got a bit of reprieve in weather conditions,” a spokeswoman said.

“The focus for us is now shifting to assessing the extent of the devastation across the weekend and looking at what containment options we have to get in place while the conditions are more in our favour.”

In South Australia, where two were killed in last week’s bushfires, 200 firefighters continue to battle blazes, with a contingent set to travel to Kangaroo Island to tackle fires which have burned 12,500 hectares.

“Over the next few days we’re hoping to get these fires contained and get these burning tree stumps extinguished so that we’re in a good position for the week ahead when the hot weather sets in,” a spokeswoman for the South Australian Country Fire Service said.

“We are still deploying firefighters to NSW, we had another 66 leave this morning. Sixty-six out of 13,500 — we’re not depleting our resources to help out NSW.”

In Victoria, 426 firefighters continue to battle blazes in the mountains of East Gippsland. A Country Fire Authority spokeswoman said Monday was a day for concern with changing weather conditions as the heatwave arrived.

“This week will be a focus on reducing the fire threat,” she said.