The Rural Fire Service says it could be days before several blazes burning across northern New South Wales are contained, with “worsening conditions” expected this weekend.
Key points:
- The Willi Willi Road fire near Kempsey has burned through more than 22,000 hectares
- The Hat Head community is isolated, but not under threat
- Firefighters are also concerned about a fire burning between Byron Bay and Brunswick heads
Three fires have flared to emergency level over the past two days, and this morning more than 60 fires are burning across the state.
One of the largest is the Willi Willi Road fire west of Kempsey in the state’s Mid North Coast region, where a man died on Monday.
The fire has burned through more than 22,000 hectares but has been downgraded to Advice level.
NSW Rural Fire Service Inspector Ben Shepherd said there was a lot of work to do under eased conditions in the coming days, before it warmed up over weekend.
“It does continue to burn around a number of properties, in particular around Willi Willi Road and in that Temagog area,” he said.
“Firefighters will be looking to try and get containment on that fire ahead of worsening conditions across the weekend.”
Bellbrook Public School and Willawarrin Public School north-west of Kempsey are closed today due to the fire risk.
The main road leading to Hat Head to the east of Kempsey is also closed due to the Belmore River fire.
“At this stage it does remain cut off and that’s mostly just due to the threat of falling trees across that road,” Mr Sheperd said.
“Hat Head itself is not under threat at the moment, but that fire is likely to come quite close to that township over the course of the day.”
Blaze north of Byron Bay
The RFS is also concerned about a fire further north between Byron Bay and Brunswick Heads, which has burned through 450h of bushland, including behind the Blues Festival site.
National Parks and Wildlife North Coast region coordinator Tony Prior said most of today’s effort would be around Grays Lane and Tyagarah, north of Byron Bay.
“The fire danger today is moderate,” he said.
“That’s the first time in three days we’ve had it come back a little bit so we’re hoping for abatement.
“We’re still going to have winds up to 30 kilometres [per hour] but conditions are more favourable to help us finally get this under containment.”