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NSW fires live: Lithgow under threat and second person dead in South Australia bushfires – latest news
NSW fires live: Lithgow under threat and second person dead in South Australia bushfires – latest news
(32 minutes later)
Emergency fire warnings have been issued for parts of NSW, including Greater Sydney, Victoria and South Australia, and the Australian weather forecast is for extreme temperatures
Emergency fire warnings have been issued for parts of NSW, including Greater Sydney, Victoria and South Australia, and the Australian weather forecast is for extreme temperatures
The bushfires are creating thunderstorms at the Currowan and Tianjara fires in the Shoalhaven, which is just awful.
My colleague Graham Redfearn wrote about this phenomena yesterday. Graham explained that scientists are the climate crisis will lead to a surge of these violent thunderstorms, known as PyroCBs.
Blackheath resident Robert Smith told the Guardian how he left his home in the town after the fires neared.
Here is a look at the water bombing effort Mike Bowers relayed to me earlier.
Guardian Australia photographer Mike Bowers tells me crews at Yanderra, south of Bargo, have been keeping conditions at bay there. Five or six water bombers have been dumping repeatedly deluge after deluge as they fight to protect homes.
Guardian Australia photographer Mike Bowers tells me crews at Yanderra, south of Bargo, have been keeping conditions at bay there. Five or six water bombers have been dumping repeatedly deluge after deluge as they fight to protect homes.
For those of you outside of New South Wales, Lithgow is a town of about 12,000 people in the Central Tablelands region of the state. It’s about two hours’ drive west of Sydney.
For those of you outside of New South Wales, Lithgow is a town of about 12,000 people in the Central Tablelands region of the state. It’s about two hours’ drive west of Sydney.
More from out of Lithgow from the local paper, the Bathurst Bulletin.
More from out of Lithgow from the local paper, the Bathurst Bulletin.
And the RFS posted this earlier.
And the RFS posted this earlier.
We’re in Kurrajong Heights, where a strike team is setting up ahead of a fire front just on the other side of the hill.
The sky is dark, and it is eerily still, with ash falling from the sky.
“The parts were worried about being impacted are along here, and a road behind us,” says Greg, who’s leading the strike team here.
“At the moment the rush is not as great as what we thought it was… It’s about a K away.”Asked if this is the main point of concern, Greg says “it’s everywhere”.
“There’s multiple points. It just continues to spot and we can’t stop it.”
It’s incredibly still now. Greg laughs.
“When you’re still that’s when you worry. It’s the calm before the storm. Fires will make their own weather and when they haven’t joined together and had the bonfire effect and there’s a distance between them, usually the main fire front will make its own weather and start driving itself. Which means it sucks all the air from the surrounding areas.
“So if it’s quiet and still, that’s when the worry is.”
Ashleigh Coskerie and Jonathon Evripidou live just down the hill. Andrew Helwig is their neighbour.
The three have stayed to fight off ember attacks and spot fires on their houses.
“It’s looking pretty bad,” says Evripidou. “If it comes through it’s going to get ten times worse, I know that.
“It’s just a waiting game.”
Coskerie says they heard their street over the scanner radio and had a moment of panic, but they feel better with so many crews outside.
“We feel safer now we’ve got all the guys in the street… They’re right there if, you know.”
And some more.
Awful scenes coming out of Lithgow right now.
Now, Bowers says he is in Yanderra, near Bargo and fire is about to impact on properties there.
Guardian Australia’s photographer-at-large Mike Bowers was at Bargo, where he says the latest RFS temperature report had it at 41C.
We are in Richmond where smoke is extraordinarily thick and the RFS’s 737 Large Air Tanker is doing laps overhead, bombing the fire just a few suburbs away.
The Richmond club is acting as the evacuation centre. There hasn’t been an evacuation centre declared officially for this area yet and people are a bit confused about where they are supposed to go, but people are welcome at the Richmond club and many have just shown up with pets and family having left their homes either as a precaution or fleeing the fire.
A couple has arrived with seven cats, and another man came down from Mount Bowen on his bike, we’re told.
Mary Lyons-Buckett is the deputy mayor of Hawkesbury, and tells us people are mainly coming from Bilpin, Mount Bowen – which was recently evacuated – and Kurrajong and Kurrajong Heights.
“Our local fire brigades, many of them went up north and have been fighting the fires in Port Macquarie and so on, and they have been fighting this fire in the valley for a good four or five weeks.”
“From a community perspective there are really heightened emotions, people are tearful just speaking about it even if they aren’t affected.”
In that press conference, RFS commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons also confirmed that those Blue Mountains fires are now moving towards the populated Blackheath and Mt Victoria areas. Many residents say they are preparing to evacuate, and pictures have certainly showed the fire conditions there worsening in the past hour or two.
Looking to the coming days and weeks ahead, BOM spokeswoman says there were be thunderstorms during Christmas Eve but that won’t be “significant for fire dampening”. Air quality in the Sydney area will improve to “fair” tomorrow, rather than “hazardous” as it has been today.
Asked when NSW can expect sustained rainfall, the spokeswoman says there is nothing significant forecast for the next month or two.
Fitzsimmons also said that so far in greater Sydney area conditions had not quite reached “catastrophic”.
“A couple of hours to go, hopefully we don’t get there.,” he says.
But Fitzsimmons adds: “Today has been an awful day. We have seen property impacted and lost.”
