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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
National
Josh Taylor (now), Naaman Zhou and Christopher Knaus (earlier)

300 new blazes across New South Wales on Tuesday and a dozen homes damaged – as it happened

Summary as of 10pm AEDT

I’m about to log off for the evening, but if conditions worsen in the next few hours we will pick up the live blog again.

Here’s the latest as of 10pm AEDT:

There have been over 300 new fires across New South Wales on Tuesday. Currently there are over 70 fires and half of those are out of control. There are nine fires at emergency alert level. They are:

  • Liberation Trail fire in Clarence Valley
  • Myall Creek Rd, Bora Ridge
  • Stockyard East, near Port Macquarie
  • Washpool State Forest
  • Gospers Mountain, in the Lithgow LGA
  • Hillville Rd, Hillville on the mid-north coast
  • Reserve Rd, Mares Run on the mid-north coast
  • Rumba Dump, mid-coast
  • Thunderbolts Way, Bretti, mid-coast.

Eight fires are at watch and act level.

A southerly change has led to a drop in the temperature in Sydney, but the Rural Fire Service fears that as the southerly travels north to more fire-affected areas, it could cause more headaches for firefighters trying to get the fires there under control. The cooler temperature hasn’t made it any less dry.

At least a dozen homes have been damaged or destroyed, and some firefighters have been injured, but none of the injuries have been life-threatening.

In Queensland, there are over 60 active fires, and conditions are expected to worsen on Wednesday with strong winds and temperatures in the mid-30s. The focus for fire fighters in the state has been on preparing for tomorrow.

Thank you for following the updates during the day, and please stay safe if you are in the affected areas.

You can find up-to-date information on the NSW fires here, and the Queensland fires here.

If you wish to donate to support those affected, you can find information on that here.

John and Lucy Van Hoof evacuated from their caravan to an auditorium of the Tuncurry Bowling Club.
John and Lucy Van Hoof evacuated from their caravan to an auditorium of the Tuncurry Bowling Club. Photograph: Jessica Hromas/The Guardian

The auditorium of the Tuncurry Bowling Club is filling up with air mattresses.

“Kmart sent them down, we just got a whole other load of them,” Lauren Whitty told me earlier.

“I think we’ve got plenty, but they’ve told us to expect more people later. I don’t know, to be honest I don’t know what most of these people have been through. We’re just trying to make them comfortable.

At the moment, there’s about 80 people from around the southern end of the mid-north coast who have found their way here tonight.

John and Lucy Van Hoof live in a caravan park on the outskirts of Tuncurry. They were told to leave at about 4pm this afternoon.

“There was smoke everywhere, we could see it all coming up over the hill,” Lucy told me.

“We’ve been here 23 years and I’ve never seen anything like it, when they told us to leave I thought ‘I’d rather leave now than wait’.”

Whitty, together with a group of friends, helped organise the evacuation centre at the club through a Facebook page.

“We just put out a call for help and we’ve had people from Sydney, Newcastle and some of the locals wanting to donate things. For a while we were like, ‘oh, we don’t know where to send everything’,” she said.

As we sit here more people are filing in, most of them elderly. An RFS organiser told us they’re expecting more to come after 10pm, once the wind picks up.

I take that back, the latest update has moved it back up to nine emergency alert level fires:

  • Liberation Trail fire in Clarence Valley
  • Myall Creek Rd, Bora Ridge
  • Stockyard East, near Port Macquarie
  • Washpool State Forest
  • Gospers Mountain
  • Hillville
  • Mares Run
  • Rumba Dump
  • Thunderbolts Way, Bretti.

Down to four emergency alert level fires in New South Wales

In the latest update from the RFS, they’ve downgraded six of the fires, meaning there are now four emergency alert level fires.

Those are:

  • Liberation Trail fire in Clarence Valley
  • Myall Creek Rd, Bora Ridge
  • Stockyard East, near Port Macquarie
  • Washpool State Forest.

There are still more than 70 fires burning across the state, and half of those are out of control.

There’s still concern about the southerly travelling north and what impact it could have on the fires.

A cool change has hit Sydney thanks to the arrival of the southerly, with the temperature dropping 11 degrees in 11 minutes.

The southerly should also help clear some of the smoke, according to Bom.

Fitzsimmons says there are still 11 fires burning at emergency warning level.

He said the Liberation Trail fire north west of Coffs Harbour was 150,000 hectares in size now, and getting close to the communities of Nana Glen and Koramba.

The Carrai East fire is 77,000 hectares and burning to the west of Kempsey.

The Gospers Mountain fire is now 35,000 hectares.

Fitzsimmons said it was going to be a long way to go before NSW RFS was satisfied with the state of the fires.

“They’re consuming an area of more than a million hectares. A fire of 100,000 hectares typically has a perimeter of around 1,000km. The enormity of the task to bring these fires properly under control, to consolidate them, to get around them and mop them up is enormous.”

Part of the issue is the southerly change won’t hit some of the fires until around midnight, AEDT. He said fire had spread late at night or early in the morning in the past, when conditions should have been easing.

Fitzsimmons said none of the injuries sustained by firefighters so far were life-threatening.

Up to a dozen homes damaged or destroyed today, NSW RFS says

This is the latest from the 8pm NSW RFS briefing from RFS commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons.

He says there were 300 new fires across New South Wales today. It’s estimated that up to a dozen homes have been damaged or destroyed today, but there could be more with fires still going.

The southerly change was also still moving up the coast.

“All these fires that we have got north of Sydney up the north coast are still subject to the influence of this strong southerly change that’s moving across the fire ground which will impact and influence fire behaviour, create the volatile and potentially dangerous circumstances and shift the fire in a different direction than what it’s been doing for most of today,” he said.

Updated

Joseph Schuelein, from Bungwahl, just south of Forster, prepares for the fire.
Joseph Schuelein, from Bungwahl, just south of Forster, prepares for the fire. Photograph: Jessica Hromas/The Guardian

In the tiny village of Bungwahl, just south of Forster on the Myall
Lake, Joseph Schuelein was filling up water for his gutters.

The road through the town is thick with smoke from the dozens of fires lining the mid-north coast, but Schuelein said he had no intention of leaving.

“Yeah, the bloke from the local fire brigade did come down and say we should think about moving, but where are we gonna go?” he told me earlier.

“Our place is pretty well protected and we’ve got dad’s boat on the lake if things got really bad.”

A little earlier, down on the Pacific Highway, a line of trucks snaked back for a few hundred metres. The highway is closed at the town of Bulahdelah, and the Rural Fire Service is only letting residents up the Lakes Way. In any case, most of the trucks are too large to handle the winding curves of the only other road up to Forster, the Lakes Way.

Frustrated truck drivers congregated around a service station and said things I probably can’t print here. A woman and her husband, from Wagga Wagga, were hanging out in their camper van. They’d been headed for a holiday in Port Macquarie, but couldn’t get any further.

“We’re probably just going to cook dinner and go to bed,” she said.

Updated

Greg Christensen, the mayor of Scenic Rim in Queensland was on ABC’s 7.30 program.

He said residents were used to fires, but not anything like those over the past few days.

“Not on this level of volatility. The speed of running - the level of the burn - I’ve seen fire burning across open ground as though it was a kerosene pool.

“That is the type of fire we are experiencing. This is something that is unprecedented in my lifetime of involvement here and, certainly, from the memories I have from my father’s storytelling as well.”

Chemical fire retardant was dropped on to the Sydney suburb of Turramurra, casting a pink hue over streets and houses.

a pink landscape
pink house
pink street

Residents in Upper Lansdowne, Elands, Bobin, Marlee and areas NW of Wingham are being told to seek shelter because the Rumba dump fire has breached containment lines.

An update from the small rural community of Elands in northern NSW where there has been an emergency warning from the Rumba Dump fire. Nearby Bobin was devastated by bushfires over the weekend.

Most residents of Elands were evacuated from their homes on Monday night but a few chose to stay and defend and have congregated at the one point in town where they can get phone reception.

Susie Russell is one those residents. She said extreme winds that had been forecast had so far not eventuated.

“The local fire captain was here just now. He was hopeful the village will be able to be protected,” she said.

“It will depend what the southerly wind does that’s forecast for 2 o’clock in the morning.

“I know there’s been people very concerned about what is happening, but for those of us who are here we are calm and trying to make sure everything is alright.”

Jarra Hicks is also from Elands and is one of the residents who chose to leave after the village was door-knocked last night. She is 16 weeks pregnant and left behind her husband, father-in-law and a house they had just finished renovating to go to Newcastle where she has friends.

Communication in and out of Elands has been challenging for days because power and the mobile phone tower has been down since the Bobin fires hit on Friday.

“Most people were able to leave the village. The fire has now hit and unfortunately it’s hitting on three sides at once,” Hicks said.

“We just have one very small volunteer fire brigade fighting the fires.”

She said other community members had gone to Wingham, but they were now heading for Taree because Wingham had been evacuated now as well.

“It’s a game of hopscotch to wherever the fires are not,” she says.

“We’ve had very limited ability to communicate and because the resources of the RFS have been so stretched, we’ve had very little information at all.

“It’s highly uncertain. I expect if our home survives we will be extremely lucky because we’re a small community. There’s around 200-300 people. There’s only one volunteer fire brigade of six people.”

Updated

There’s a lot of smoke over Sydney right now.

Smoke shrouds the Sydney Opera House as bushfires rage across parts of New South Wales
Smoke shrouds the Sydney Opera House as bushfires rage across parts of New South Wales. Photograph: Helen de Jode/The Guardian

Updated

Cynthia Lush was home alone in her house across the street from the South Turrumurra bushfire.

“We got a phone call about half an hour [after it started], on the home phones. It was way into the half an hour. I could hear the sirens, that’s what alerted me, then I popped my heard out and they said no get inside.”

Brian Wilson wasn’t remotely worried. The Guardian found him sitting in an outdoor chair in front of his garage, looking across the road where his neighbours’ houses were drenched in bright pink fire retardant.

Brian Wilson
Brian Wilson sits outside his home in South Turramurra, after firefighters extinguished a fire which had rapidly developed into an emergency-level blaze, threatening homes and lives on 12 November. Photograph: Helen Davidson/The Guardian

“We’ve had a couple, but everybody wants to run around. I’m quite happy to just sit here and watch them do it,” he said.

“I’m on the wrong side of the hill, it blows the embers over us. Everybody panics, there’s no point.”

Updated

It’s a pretty surreal scene at the South Turramurra fire, where a suspiciously-lit, fast-moving bushfire came perilously close to properties in the affluent Sydney suburb.

Helicopters have hit the fire - and some nearby mansions - with a pink retardant, coating roofs, gardens, and bitumen in a thick layer of pink.

Multiple fires began mid-afternoon in bushland around Turramurra, including at Canoon Road and Field of Mars Avenue, where flames came within metres of homes.

Residents reported towering flames and embers dropping well ahead of the fire front, starting their own fires in the dried out bushland. Geoff Bird lives on Canoon Road, near where one of the fires ripped through bushland on Tuesday afternoon.

Geoff Bird
Geoff Bird was at home when a bushfire started across the road from his house in South Turramurra, north of Sydney. Photograph: Helen Davidson/The Guardian

His children’s school had been closed in anticipation of fires like this, and he was well prepared.

When Bird saw the fire closest to his house, he immediately packed up, got his wife and kids out, and stayed to monitor the situation.

“I was in my backyard and saw the first plume of smoke and all the firies coming down the road. So I knew something had happened,” he told the Guardian.

“Within half an hour of that I was inside watching the news, keeping an eye on things, and then could smell the smoke and came out to see where it is.

“From there it was a matter of packing up valuable things, we activated our fire plan, so we were ready to go, evacuated my wife and children, and then I stayed and kept a close eye on things.”

Police were on scene quickly and have confirmed they are now treating the fire as suspicious.

Updated

“We’ve got to get on top of this shit,” an angry Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce told Karl Stefanovic on 2GB regarding the supposed “red tape” around land clearing, that he has blamed on the Greens.

These claims are, as we reported today, “without foundation” according to experts.

Also it bears repeating, his party has been in government in NSW since 2011, and federally since 2013.

Here comes the southerly.

The Myall Creek Rd fire has crossed the Pacific Highway at New Italy and is moving quickly, according to the RFS.

There are still 13 fires at emergency warning level, and 7 fires at watch and act. The southerly change is expected in Sydney in the next hour or so.

Harper St, Greta fire reduced to watch and act

Good news for Greta residents.

This is a video provided to us from volunteer firefighter Dan Boswood taken at Lake Mary, west of Yeppoon.

Updated

More than 150 schools and over a dozen Tafe campuses in New South Wales will be closed tomorrow, again.

You can find a list of the schools affected here.

Updated

An update on the insurance situation, via my colleague Ben Butler:

The Insurance Council of Australia says that as of 3pm insurers had received 360 claims for fires in the NSW mid-north coast - 80 of which are suspected total losses.

Initial losses are estimated at $40m, but this figure is likely to rise once people get access to their properties and assess the damage.

The ICA has declared the mid-north coast fires a catastrophe, a technical term in the insurance industry that allows insurers to claim against specialised reinsurance policies, and more areas may follow as the fires across NSW and Queensland continue.

It will issue another update tomorrow, a spokesman said.

Emergency alert for Liberation Trail fire

The Liberation Trial fire, which was already at an emergency alert level, has breached containment lines and is threatening Yarracooma, Paddys Plain, Cradle Creek and Lowanna.

Firefighters are getting the upper hand on the fire at Wine Country Drive.

There are 13 emergency warnings in place.

Meanwhile, prime minister Scott Morrison has told his fellow politicians to “take it down a few notches” after the ongoing fight between Nationals MPs Barnaby Joyce, Michael McCormack, and Greens MP Adam Bandt while NSW and Queensland are on fire. Via AAP:

“There have been a lot of provocative comments made over the last few days from all sides of the debate and I find it very unhelpful,” Morrison told reporters in Canberra.

“The last thing that people in an urgent crisis need at the moment is hearing politicians shout at each other.

“There is a time and a place to debate controversial issues and important issues, right now it’s important to focus on the needs of Australians who need our help.”

There are concerns about the coming southerly change, according to this report from AAP.

More than a dozen emergency bushfires are raging across NSW as millions of residents face “catastrophic” fire danger with a southerly wind change expected to make matters even worse.

“We are still concerned with the movement of the southerly change as it heads through NSW over the coming hours,” Rural Fire Service NSW commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons told reporters in Sydney.

Fitzsimmons said the southerly change would reach Sydney by 7pm and hit the north of the state late on Tuesday or early Wednesday morning.

“We simply can’t rest easy at this stage. We’ve got many hours left yet of prevailing, hot, dry, windy conditions,” he said.

Fitzsimmons said the day was unfolding as predicted with a million hectares burning.

Bureau of Meteorology state manager Ann Farrell says as the southerly change moves up NSW “the fires will be fanned in a different direction”.

“They’ll be very gusty and quite unpredictable at times - so that will make fire conditions much more dangerous,” she told reporters in Sydney.

Updated

Josh Taylor back at the helm for the latest update from NSW RFS commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons for 5.30pm AEDT.

There are 85 fires across NSW, and 46 are not contained. There are 14 fires at emergency alert level, and 17 at the watch and act level.

There’s a small fire in Katoomba in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney but that fire has been contained.

A firefighter at Turramurra has suffered suspected fractured arm and ribs.

The earlier report of a cardiac arrest of a firefighter at North Rothbury was thankfully not the case when emergency services arrived.

Fitzsimmons said suspicious activity had not been ruled out in any of the fires, and investigations would take place in due course.

The 14 emergency warning fires are:

  • Gulf Rd fire, south west of Tenterfield
  • Washpool state forest
  • Myall Creek
  • Liberation Trail north-west of Coffs Harbour
  • Kian Rd fire
  • Carrai East fire, west of Kempsey
  • Carrai Creek fire
  • Stockyard East fire
  • Reserves Rd
  • Thunderbolts Way
  • Rumba Dump fire, all north of Wingham and Taree
  • Hillville Rd, south of Taree
  • Greta fire, near Maitland
  • Gospers Mountain fire, towards Putty Rd.

Fitzsimmons said people needed to stay vigilant.

“We still have many hours yet of these strong dry winds to dominate and influence weather and fire behaviour. We’ve still got the southerly change expected to move through later tonight, across the fire grounds still burning up in northern New South Wales.”

There’s no indication of catastrophic conditions tomorrow, but the statewide fire ban will remain in place.

“We do need to be mindful that we’re expecting a return to hot and dry and windy conditions again towards the end of this week, certainly as we head to Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, we can expect to see elevated fire dangers again. I don’t have anything in the signal to suggest catastrophic at this stage, but severe and above is likely.”

Updated

Some good news for Sydney residents: the NSW Rural Fire Service has just downgraded the South Turramurra fire from an emergency warning to advice level.

The ABC reporter Nick Dole is on the ground in the Sydney suburb where he says the blaze crept up quickly.

“Some of the neighbours told me here they saw some smoke and before they knew it the blaze was basically up against their backyard,” he said on ABC News.

A number of homes came under ember attack, he said.

“We just spoke to the neighbour and he says there are a number of spotfires that went through his yard. Fortunately some of his neighbours managed to help him and put out the spotting and the house has been saved.”

Updated

The federal government’s aviation authority has labelled the use of personal drones over fire grounds “sheer stupidity” that risks lives after an incident on Monday night, AAP reports.

Crews on Sydney’s north shore were responding to reports of smoke when they spotted a civilian drone hovering over the area.

Although no fire was found, the drone could have seriously hampered firefighting efforts, the Killara rural fire brigade said in a post on Facebook.

“If a fire was confirmed at the location we would not be able to request any aerial assistance due to the sighting of a drone near the fire,” the brigade posted in a statement on Facebook.

The Civil Aviation Safety Authority spokesman Peter Gibson said flying a drone near a bushfire was illegal. The act could attract fines of up to $10,500 and prosecution may be sought where people are put at risk, Gibson said in a statement on Tuesday.

Updated

A watch and act alert has been issued for a fire at Cliff Drive, Katoomba, in the Blue Mountains.

Updated

More images are coming in of brightly coloured fire retardant being dropped on homes in South Turramurra, in Sydney’s north.

Updated

Emergency alert for Carrai Creek fire

The NSW Rural Fire Service has just issued an emergency alert for the Carrai Creek fire, near Armidale. It is now too late to leave if you’re in the area west of Kempsey. Residents are advised to seek shelter as the fire approaches.

Updated

Vision of the South Turramurra fire on Sydney’s north shore clearly shows the bushfire is threatening properties.

Firefighters are battling to save homes using aerial firefighting units dropping retardant onto the flames. This is precisely the situation NSW firefighters were hoping to avoid. Fires are now hitting areas of dense population.

This fire is the subject of an emergency warning. Firefighters are advising people to seek shelter, saying it is now too late to leave.

Updated

Emergency warning issued for South Turramurra in Sydney

It’s Christopher Knaus here again, taking over our coverage temporarily from Josh Taylor.

Bushfires are now spreading to Sydney’s north shore. ABC vision shows a blaze burning through grassland and bush at South Turramurra, on Sydney’s north shore.

The fire is in the area of Canoon Road and is spreading quickly. Nearby residents have been warned it is now too late to leave. They are advised to take shelter as the fire approaches.

Updated

4.15pm AEDT update from NSW RFS

Here’s what we know following the latest update from the Rural Fire Service commissioner, Shane Fitzsimmons.

There are 78 fires burning across NSW with 47 of those not contained. There are 12 fires at emergency warning level and eight fires at watch and act level.

The 12 emergency alert fires were:

  • Gulf Road, Tenterfield
  • Washpool
  • Myall Creek, west of Woodburn
  • Liberation Trail, west of Coffs Harbour
  • Kian Road, south-west of Macksville
  • Reserves Road, north of Gloucester
  • Thunderbolts Way, north of Gloucester
  • Rumba Dump near Elands, Bobin and Marlee
  • Hillville Road, south of Taree
  • Greta near Cessnock
  • Wine Country Road in North Rothbury
  • Gosford Road, north of Sydney in the Hawkesbury area

Fitzsimmons said multiple homes were damaged at the North Rothbury fire. This fire has since been downgraded to watch and act.

He said firefighters had been able to keep on top of fires in the Sydney basin area but the strong southerly coming through in the next few hours was a cause for concern. This would occur around 7pm or 8pm in the Sydney region, and then north later in the evening.

There are some reported firefighter injuries, and one cardiac arrest in the Hunter, he said.

The Fire Near Me app has been downloaded 376,000 times in the past few days, he said.

Smoke from a large bushfire is seen outside Nana Glen, near Coffs Harbour
Smoke from a large bushfire is seen outside Nana Glen, near Coffs Harbour. Photograph: Dan Peled/AAP

Updated

Emergency warning issued for Gospers Mountain

An emergency warning has been issued for Gospers Mountain in the Lithgow local government area.

Updated

There’s also an updated fire weather warning from the Bureau of Meteorology. Catastrophic fire danger remains in place in the greater Sydney, greater Hunter and Illawarra/Shoalhaven regions.

It is extreme fire danger for the north coast, southern ranges, central ranges, New England, northern slopes and north-western regions.

It is severe fire danger for the far north coast, the far south coast and Monaro Alpine districts.

It is very high fire danger for the upper central west plains, lower central west plains and southern slopes.

Updated

Residents of Harper Street in Greta are being advised to seek shelter as firefighters battle a fast-moving grassfire.

Updated

The Public Service Association is blaming the NSW government for a 35% decline in the number of fire-trained rangers at the National Parks and Wildlife Service.

In 2011, when the Liberal government came to power, there were 289 rangers, of which there were 28 senior rangers, according to the provided figures. Now there are just 193 rangers and no senior rangers, representing a 35% cut to fire-trained staff.

The PSA acting general secretary, Troy Wright, attributes the job losses to millions of dollars in cuts and forced restructures:

If the origins of these catastrophic fires across the state are in national parks then it is the National Party and part of the Berejiklian government that are responsible for the lack of preparedness. It is the complete absence of proper funding, not some mercurial green movement as the Nationals allege.

Overall, there has been a 35 percent cut to fire-trained positions in National Parks. The loss of expertise is irreplaceable – area managers with 30 years’ experience have left roles and not been replaced.

As a horror fire season arrives rather than recruiting more rangers to help prevent fires the head of NPWS announced a go slow on recruitment.

Parks are being managed by NPWS which is operating on a skeleton staff. That will always be a risky proposition, but on days like today it can be lethal.

Updated

Emergency warning for Myall Creek Road, Bora Ridge

An emergency warning has been issued for Myall Creek Road, Bora Ridge in the Richmond Valley local government area.

It is too late to leave, and the Rural Fire Service is advising people to seek shelter.

This brings the total of emergency warnings to 11.

Updated

Terry Green, who runs the Tuncurry bowling club, says they’ve got quite a mix of evacuees at the moment.

“We’ve got kids and dogs and birds and cats, and we’ve even got a goldfish here,” he says. “We’re a bit of a menagerie at the moment and it looks a bit like Noah’s Ark out the back.”

There are around 100 people at the centre, which has been an evacuation centre since last week.

“We’re looking after them and providing a safe environment for them. We’ve been inundated with food and clothes and that sort of thing, with help from Salvos,” Green says. (The club’s Facebook post asks people to donate money to the Red Cross now, if they’d like to help out.)

They’re expecting up to 800 people tonight from Nabiac, Pacific Palms, Red Head, Black Head and around the Taree district.

“They’re all in good spirits even though it’s an emotional time, a worrying time,” says Green. “But they’re supporting each other… We’ve got quiet areas where people who are showing signs of emotion can go and talk with counsellors from the Salvation Army.”

Updated

Josh Taylor here covering the ongoing fire crises on the live blog this afternoon and into the evening. Thanks to my colleagues Naaman Zhou and Chris Knaus for their coverage so far.

There is a total fire ban in New South Wales today, and the police are taking that very seriously.

The NSW police say they’ve taken action against three men for breaching the ban, and a child for committing an act of arson.

Yesterday afternoon, a 27-year-old man in Wallacia allegedly lit a camp fire to boil water for a cup of tea. Police issued him with a $2,200 on-the-spot fine.

Then in the evening, a 35-year-old man in Prestons was issued with an infringement notice for allegedly burning fence palings in a barbecue, which caused a secondary blaze.

A 46-year-old man allegedly lit a fire in a small coal barbecue at Lalor Park. He was arrested for failing to comply with the ban, and for a breach of bail.

A 9-year-old boy has been issued with a warning after starting a small grassfire using a blowtorch in Worrigee this morning.

“A total fire ban means no fires out in the open. This helps limit the potential of fires developing,” NSW police said.

“During a total fire ban you cannot light, maintain or use a fire in the open, or carry out any activity in the open that causes, or is likely to cause, a fire.”

Updated

Bill Ludwig, mayor of Livingston Shire, has just been speaking about the fire in Yeppoon in central Queensland, which destroyed eight homes. Ludwig previously said he had never seen a fire in the region that started so fast, moved so quickly, and put so many people under threat.

He told the ABC on Monday that the climate was clearly changing and it was having “dramatic consequences that were unfolding every year and appear to be escalating”.

Ludwig spoke to reporters again on Tuesday and said affected residents were now looking to return to their homes. He has urged the general public to stay off the roads near the fire grounds, even if they have been reopened.

“We do not need sightseers, we have a live situation in place and we want people to do the right thing so the firefighters can effectively respond to the fire and the recovery, including the inspections that are happening to make sure areas are safe,” Ludwig told reporters in Queensland.

Updated

Plesman has lived on the property in Nymboida on and off since she was born. She said in the past decade, the weather had become increasingly unpredictable in terms of both fires and drought.

Storms that used to occur of an evening in summer and fill up the dams had become less reliable.

“People who are struggling to survive want everyone to know this is a climate emergency,” she said.

“All my family were well set up. Sprinkler systems. Fire systems. What we’re seeing is that nothing can withstand the catastrophic nature of these fires.

“People know that living in the bush, there is fire. But they want people to know we’ve never experienced anything like this.”

A before and after of Gemma Plesman’s home:

Gemma Plesman’s house in Nymboida in NSW, before and after fires over the weekend, 12 November 2019
Gemma Plesman’s house in Nymboida in NSW, before and after fires over the weekend, 12 November 2019 Composite: Gemma Plesman

“We had four houses on the property,” Gemma Plesman says.

“Three were burnt completely. My mum and two of my aunties lost their homes. It’s really horrific, they’re completely gone.”

Plesman is from Brisbane but grew up in Nymboida, a rural town in northern NSW, about 45 minutes from Grafton. Over the weekend, fire tore through the rural property, which Plesman’s mother and her mother’s siblings had purchased four decades ago.

Three of the four houses they had built on the land were completely destroyed. The remaining house was partially burnt.

“The heartbreaking thing – everybody has built them themselves,” Plesman says. “They’re not your typical kit house.

“Mudbricks they made by hand. Beautiful rocks they’d picked up at the creek and put into the walls. That’s all gone.”

Plesman says along the same stretch of road, several of her friends had lost their homes as well.

“It’s like a wasteland. It’s completely desolate. I struggle to imagine what’s happened to all the animals and birds,” she says.

Emergency warning for Wine Country Drive

An emergency warning for Wine Country Drive, in North Rothbury.

This brings the total number of emergency warnings back up to 10.

Updated

The climate rally outside NSW Parliament House earlier today has raised $4,500 for the Rural Fire Service. The rally called on the government to take action on the climate crisis and to better fund emergency services.

Updated

Whans Road downgraded

The Whans Road fire has been downgraded from emergency to watch and act.

“The fire has been downgraded due to improved conditions,” the Rural Fire Service said. “Residents in the area should continue to monitor the conditions and take advice from firefighters on the ground.”

This means there are now only nine emergency warnings currently in NSW.

Updated

The latest highest wind speeds, from the Bureau of Meteorology.

Nowra has experienced a top wind speed of 90km/h and Moss Vale 85km/h.

Maitland airport is at 70km/h winds, Cessnock at 63km/h and Gosford at 61km/h.

Coffs Harbour airport has recorded 54km/h, Glen Innes airport 63km/h and Taree airport 48km/h.

In Sydney, Penrith has experienced 70km/h gusts.

Updated

Emergency warning for Rumba Dump

A 10th emergency warning for NSW. The Rumba Dump fire – burning in the area of Elands, Bobin and Marlee.

The fire is near the Hillsville Road fire, which is also at emergency level.

“If you are in the area of Elands, Bobin, Marlee and areas north-west of Wingham, seek shelter,” the Rural Fire Service says.

Updated

WA emergency warning for Bullsbrook

There is now also an emergency warning in Western Australia, as a fire on the north-east fringes of Perth is posing a possible risk to lives and homes.

An emergency warning has just been issued for the western part of Bullsbrook in the City of Swan.

“Homes near Ellenbrook Road are under threat by fire now. You are in danger and need to act immediately to survive. There is a threat to lives and homes.”

The blaze started near Ellenbrook Road and is moving in a westerly direction.

Updated

Melinda Pavey is the NSW member for Oxley. She’s at the Kempsey Showground, which is acting as an evacuation centre for people affected by a number of fires in the area, including the emergency level Carrai East fire.

“We’re just hearing and listening to people and their stories,” Pavey says. “One family from up at Bellbrook went down to the Kempsey races and they came home and the house was gone.”

Pavey tells me they’ve had about 600 people register at the showground, and she’s just come from the Macksville evacuation centre which was “full of volunteers getting ready for people to come in”.

“Here we’ve got tables and tables laden with donated food and clothes and toys, for people who have lost everything,” she says, adding that local businesses and charities had donated food, fans and games consoles for the kids to stay entertained.

“It’s typical of Kempsey and Macksville, helping the community. There’s a tremendous spirit but also a feeling of trepidation, everyone is on tenterhooks about the heat and the wind and what’s going to happen.”

Pavey says her own home is not in danger but she’s worried about others.

“I’m worried about Bellingen tonight with the southerly. I’m just worried. I don’t want people to go through the pain.”

Updated

Emergency warning for Kian Road

The ninth emergency warning. The fire near Kian Road has breached containment lines and is burning towards Macksville.

“If you’re near Talarm, Macksville, Allgomera Creek, seek shelter,” the Rural Fire Service says.

Updated

More from the Bureau of Meteorology, which has warned that conditions will become “increasingly dangerous throughout the afternoon”.

The bureau’s state manager, Ann Farrell, told AAP a low-pressure system would bring “strengthening, hot, dry winds” that will make firefighters’ job much harder.

Earlier the Rural Fire Service commissioner, Shane Fitzsimmons, said that the worst winds would not sweep through until midnight.

Stuart Ellis from the Australasian Fire and Emergency Service Authorities Council also told ABC TV that: “This event will develop late in the day, particularly for Sydney, the Hunter and the Illawarra.”

Updated

Fitzsimmons stresses that all the fires are “getting closer to population centres”.

“That’s why we invested very much in the predictive maps earlier today,” he says. “To show that these fires are getting closer to population centres.”

Updated

There are currently eight emergency warnings around NSW. There are 71 fires across the state, 40 uncontained. Eight are at emergency warning level and 10 are at watch and act.

Fitzsimmons says all eight fires are near population centres.

The eight fires are:

  • The Myall Creek fire near Woodburn.
  • The Liberation Trail fire west of Coffs Harbour.
  • The Thunderbolts Way fire, north of Gloucester.
  • The Gulf Road fire near Tenterfield.
  • The Hillville Road fire near Nabiac, south of Taree.
  • The Whans Road fire in Llangothlin.
  • The Carrai fire west of Kempsey.
  • The Reserves Road fire, north of Gloucester.

Updated

2pm AEDT update

The NSW Rural Fire Service commissioner, Shane Fitzsimmons, says that winds are up to 80km/h across the greater Hunter and 70km/h in the Blue Mountains.

“This will only worsen through the afternoon as the weather conditions continue to deteriorate,” he says. “Those winds will only get stronger in the afternoon.”

He says three properties have been impacted, and potentially destroyed, by the Hillville fire near Taree.

“The conditions have still got a way to go before they reach the potential of the forecast,” he says.

Updated

Naaman Zhou here, taking over the blog again. Thanks to my colleague Chris Knaus.

We are expecting another update from the NSW Rural Fire Service commissioner in a few minutes.

Updated

Catastrophic fire danger: the day so far

Let’s take a moment to recap the day, as NSW battles unprecedented fire danger. The main concern continues to be around bushfires on the mid-north coast of NSW, but we’re also seeing significant fire danger in Queensland and South Australia.

  • The NSW Rural Fire Service has issued eight emergency warnings for bushfires across the state, including for fires at Hillville Road (near Nabiac and Failford), Llangothlin (near Armidale), Thunderbolts Way (north of the Gloucester), Gulf Road (south-west of Tenterfield), and Reserves Road..
  • There are more than 50 fires burning in NSW, most of them uncontrolled. A total fire ban remains in place. Authorities in NSW are warning conditions will continue to worsen throughout the day with strengthening winds and higher temperatures.
  • Fire danger is still rated as “catastrophic” in the greater Sydney, greater Hunter and Illawarra/Shoalhaven regions.
  • Changing winds moving north up the NSW east coast this evening are expected to create significant danger, potentially switching the direction of the fire front and intensifying winds.
  • Nine schools in north-west NSW and the Upper Hunter have been evacuated as a precaution. That’s on top of hundreds of schools and Tafes already closed by the state government.
  • A state of fire emergency has been declared across 42 local government areas in Queensland. The main concern is in the state’s south-east, and conditions are expected to worsen into the afternoon.
  • The bushfires have led to a significant worsening of air quality as smoke haze drifts across NSW and south-eastern Queensland.
A man photographs the Martins Bridge, shrouded in bushfire smoke, spanning the Manning River at Taree on Tuesday
A man photographs the Martins Bridge, shrouded in bushfire smoke, spanning the Manning River at Taree on Tuesday. Photograph: Darren Pateman/AAP

Updated

Emergency warning for Washpool State Forest fire

Residents near Baryulgil are being warned to seek shelter as the Washpool state forest fire approaches. It is now too late to leave. The NSW Rural Fire Service has issued an emergency warning for the fire, the seventh such warning for fires across the state today.

Updated

Emergency warning for Liberation Trail fire

A sixth emergency warning has just been issued by the NSW Rural Fire Service. This one is for the Liberation Trail fire, near Clarence Valley. The fire has breached containment lines. Authorities are advising residents in the areas of Nana Glen and Coramba that they should leave immediately towards Coffs Harbour.

Updated

Conditions are expected to worsen significantly this afternoon as a wind change moves through NSW. Meteorologists are expecting the change to bring southerly winds up the coast, reaching Wollongong between 5pm and 6pm, Sydney at 7pm, Newcastle between 8pm and 9pm, and Port Macquarie about midnight.

That change complicates the fires significantly. It not only changes the direction of the fire front, but intensifies winds. Stronger winds will carry embers well ahead of the fire front and spread fires with greater speed.

This is a time of particular fire danger.

Updated

Just a little more on those school evacuations in north-west NSW and the Upper Hunter. We’ve heard from the education minister, Sarah Mitchell, who said the number of schools now evacuated is nine. The schools were evacuated as a precautionary measure and on the advice of the Rural Fire Service, she said.

“Safety comes first – we need to take precaution and evacuate to get children out of there,” Mitchell told the ABC.

The schools evacuated were around Gloucester, Stratford and Stroud, north of Newcastle, and Moonbi and Bendemeer, north of Tamworth.

Eight of the schools were primary schools and one was a high school.

“This is unfolding as we speak so we’re just doing what we need to to get them into safe areas,” she said.

Updated

Emergency warning for Carrai East fire

A fire at Carrai East, north-west of Port Macquarie, has burst containment lines and is spreading quickly. The NSW Rural Fire Service has just issued an emergency warning for the fire, saying residents west of Kempsey are at risk and should not now leave their homes. They have been told to seek shelter as the fire front approaches.

It is the fifth emergency warning to be issued by the NSW RFS today.

Updated

Students evacuated in NSW

Bushfires have reportedly forced the evacuation of eight schools in NSW’s north-west and Upper Hunter regions.

The NSW education department had already announced more than 575 school closures.

Here’s another view of that smoke haze, this time from satellite imagery. This is from the Weatherzone meteorologist Ben Domensino.

Updated

We just mentioned the significant drops in air quality in NSW and south-east Queensland. This vision shows the thickness of the smoke haze drifting across parts of the east coast.

Queensland Fire and Emergency Services has separately advised residents near Mount Alphen and Double Top, Tarome, and Clumber and Moogerah to prepare to leave.

Updated

Emergency warning for fire at Llangothlin, near Armidale

The NSW Rural Fire Service has just issued an emergency warning for Whans Road, Llangothlin, north of Armidale and south of Glen Innes. A fire is now burning there and spreading quickly.

The RFS has advised anyone in the area of Llangothlin and its surrounds that it is now too late to leave. It has advised those in the area to seek shelter as the fire approaches.

This is the fourth emergency warning issued by the NSW RFS today.

Updated

It’s Christopher Knaus here taking over our live coverage of the bushfire emergency from Naaman Zhou.

The bushfires have caused significant deteriorations to air quality across NSW and south-east Queensland. Much of Sydney and the Hunter regions have been advised to “stay inside as much as possible” as winds push smoke from the devastating mid-north coast bushfires down the state’s east coast. A drop in air quality is also hitting the Illawarra region, south of Sydney.

Residents in south-east Queensland are also being urged to limit their time outdoors due to air quality concerns.

My colleague Michael McGowan has filed a full report on air quality across NSW and Queensland here.

Updated

Earlier today, before the three emergency warnings and updates from the NSW Rural Fire Service, the Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce claimed that two people who died over the weekend were “most likely” Greens voters, as the political stoush over the fires continues.

The current deputy PM, Michael McCormack, had said yesterday that any link between climate change and the worsening bushfires was “woke capital-city greenies ravings” and “cheap political point scoring”.

Joyce then said the Greens were to blame because their influence meant fire services had not conducted sufficient hazard reduction burns.

He then told Sky News this morning: “I acknowledge that the two people who died were most likely people who voted for the Green party” but said he did not want to attack them or the Greens but focus on the policy mix.

The full interview and transcript is here in our politics liveblog.

Journalist Kieran Gilbert asks:

The New South Wales deputy commissioner Rob Rogers said earlier that hazard reductions have gone on each and every year, each year we get as much done as we would like ...do they have enough resources to get it done?

Joyce:

I just think that it, here, in the first instance, they may need more resources, but they also need legislation, regulations, to allow them to get in there and do it in a more substantial way.

And that the crazy thing there, and I acknowledge that the two people who died were most likely people who voted for the Green party, so I am not going to start attacking them. That’s the last thing I want to do.

What I wanted to concentrate on is the policies that we can mitigate these tragedies happening again in the future. That’s where I’m going to focus.

Updated

Queensland’s acting fire commissioner says there are 55 fires still burning in the state, managed by more than 1,000 personnel.

He says they have 40 aircraft either ready or in use, and he is “comfortable with where we are at today and how we are set in terms of our readiness”.

“I’m very comfortable in terms of the work done. In saying that, with the severe conditions in the south-east this afternoon and into tonight, and tomorrow into central Queensland, those containment lines, where we’ve got them, will be tested.

“[But] we have got resources ready for any new outbreaks.”

Updated

Palaszczuk said air quality particle ratings were 10 times higher than usual today, stretching from Brisbane to Ipswich and the Gold Coast.

A meteorologist from the weather bureau adds there is no significant rainfall on the horizon for Queensland.

Updated

The Queensland premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, has just given a press conference thanking the state’s firefighters, the defence force and the extra 110 firefighters from Tasmania, Victoria, the Northern Territory and New Zealand.

She confirms that 12 homes have been destroyed.

Updated

Fitzsimmons concludes by saying that the worst is yet to come, and the blazes will continue through the night with “no reprieve”.

“We’re going to have a long night ahead of us because this southerly is going to continue through, and those strong winds are not going to get to northern NSW until near midnight,” he says.

“Unfortunately there is no reprieve, there is no rainfall in this change.”

He adds that conditions will stay incredibly dangerous next week, and for the rest of the season.

“We’re expecting a cyclical pattern of increasing hot temperatures as we head into next week. It’s going to be a long difficult fire season, and we have got the worst of our conditions typically ahead of us.”

The next NSW update will be at 2pm AEDT.

Updated

Thankfully, there are still no new fires in the catastrophic warning areas, Shane Fitzsimmons says.

He says the weather forecast is “unfolding as was predicted”.

“The forecast indicated across the ranges, we’re going to be seeing average wind strengths across the ranges of 40 to 60km/h, gusting 70 to 90km/h throughout the afternoon.

“We’re already seeing winds up around that 40 to 50km/h and gusting over 70km/h. So they’ll continue to strengthen and build ahead of the passage of the cold front that’s moving across the state.

“And late on today, we’re expecting the southerly to start influencing and driving, a southerly buster up the coastal strip, and across the ranges and further inland.”

Updated

There are several hundreds of homes in these areas, he says, but many have already left early.

He says firefighters have been in the area, sharing advice and “guiding people about leaving and leaving early.”

For the Gulf Road fire, his message to Emmerville and Stanton is: “It’s too late to leave and they will need to seek shelter as the fire approaches.”

For the Hillville Road fire: “It’s getting closer to the Pacific Highway north of Nabiac, and the police and authorities are in the process of closing the Pacific Highway.”

Updated

Third emergency warning issued

Three fires are now at emergency warning, Shane Fitzsimmons says.

They are: the Thunderbolts Way fire (north of the Gloucester), the Gulf Road fire (south-west of Tenterfield), and the Hillville Road fire (south-west of Taree).

They are all existing fires in north-eastern NSW, which have been upgraded today.

Updated

12pm AEDT update – second emergency warning

The NSW RFS commissioner, Shane Fitzsimmons, is speaking again in Sydney now.

Moments earlier, the RFS sent out a second emergency warning for Gulf Road, Torrington.

“The fire has breached containment lines and is spreading quickly. If you are in Emmaville or Stannum, seek shelter. If you are in Deepwater, monitor conditions.”

At the same time, Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk is also giving a press conference.

Updated

A southerly change is heading up the coast, according to the Bureau of Meteorology.

That has the potential to cause fires to change direction, adding more uncertainty and potential spread.

Port Macquarie resident Patrick Rudd says now is the time to talk about climate change, as fires edge closer to his hometown.

The 15-year old high school student told AAP: “If now is not the time to talk about climate change, then when is?”

Rudd’s school was closed on Monday, and he said today that smoke was so thick in town “you can taste it”.

“It’s definitely very scary,” he said. “And to see it affecting my town and me personally, it feels very threatening. It feels almost like our first look at what might lie ahead. If now is not the time to talk about climate change, then when is?

“It’s not the ‘greenies’ who are politicising [the bushfires], it’s actually the firefighters and emergency services.”

Rudd was one of the local organisers of a climate strike at his school.

Updated

First emergency warning

The first emergency warning of the day has just been issued.

A fire is burning and spreading quickly in the area of Thunderbolts Way and Nowendoc Road on the mid north coast of NSW.

“The fire is spreading quickly,” the RFS says. “If you are in the path of the fire, you are at risk.

“If you are in the Nowendoc and Mount George area, you at risk. It is too late to leave.”

Updated

Power outages have struck homes in Sydney’s north, according to AusGrid. The affected suburbs are Ryde, Gladesville, Putney and Tennyson Point.

Updated

It seems to be business as usual in the Blue Mountains town of Katoomba this morning.

Guardian Australia spoke to a number of business operators who said everything was fairly calm along the main street, despite the forecast catastrophic conditions. The cafes are full and the historic local hotel, the Carrington, is bustling.

Tourists, however, may find their days plans derailed: the Blue Mountains city council has warned the community to avoid entering bushland areas, including walking tracks, lookouts and similar, “given that any fire that starts will be uncontrollable and will spread quickly”. Campgrounds at Old Ford reserve Megalong Valley, Blackheath Glen Megalong Valley, Mount York and Cathedral of Ferns Mount Wilson are closed, as is the Blue Mountains national park until at least Thursday.

Updated

Temperatures are now above 30C in many parts of the state that are covered by the catastrophic danger warning.

In the Hunter, it is above 30C at: Cessnock airport, Gosford, Lake Macquarie – Cooranbong, Maitland airport, Mangrove Mountain, Merriwa and Williamtown.

In the Illawarra: Albion Park, Bellambi, Nowra and Jervis Bay Airfield.

In Sydney, it is above 30C at all current Bureau of Meteorology observation stations. It’s nearly 34C in Penrith and 30C on Sydney Harbour.

Updated

Northern Territory firefighters have just announced that they will be travelling to Queensland today to help with the effort as well. Precise details are still to come.

Updated

A senior Queensland fire chief has said the state is struggling with a lack of resources, AAP reports.

An assistant commissioner of the Queensland Fire and Emergency Services, Tony Johnstone, told ABC Radio: “We’re having a problem with resources. We need to admit that.”

While he has 40 aircraft on standby, he said more firefighters were needed.

“We’ve got significant aircraft for Queensland on standby to use. But aircraft don’t put fires out, aircraft help contain fires while firefighters get in.”

Queensland has called in firefighters from interstate and New Zealand.

The acting commissioner of QFES, Mike Wassing, said: “This is a marathon for us with several sprints. We’ve been at this since August when the fire season normally starts.”

Updated

A NSW Ambulance spokesman also adds that since 5am, they have seen “a slightly elevated workload across the state”.

He says there were 31 instances of respiratory conditions – 17 within greater Sydney, nine in the north of NSW and five in the south.

“One of those conditions was directly related to a patient who no longer had their asthma reliever medication with them,” he said.

“It is very, very important that we get this message out very clearly – to fail to make a plan if you have an asthma condition or respiratory condition and not have reliever medications, this could be a deadly condition for you.

“Make a plan and get medical aid as soon as possible.”

That concludes the 11am press conference.

Updated

Around the state, there is also “greater spread potential for many of our fires”, Fitzsimmons says.

This means that many of the predictions from last night of fire spread are being exceeded. Earlier we saw fires near Port Macquarie were growing.

“Across many of the 50 fires burning in north-east New South Wales, the predictions are generally showing a greater spread potential for the fires,” Fitzsimmons says. “That’s based on the conditions and the current fire behaviour.”

Updated

On the Gosper Mountain fire and the St Albans area, Fitzsimmons says: “You’re talking a very large bushfire, burning through forested country. You’re talking about relatively isolated settlements along and up the Putty Road, the communities of Mellong, and Howes Swamp.

“The decision now is to leave now. We know the fire is building. If you haven’t already done so, now is the safest time to go.”

“The edge of the fire that’s burning is being driven by the hot, dry winds coming down the ranges and influencing the fire behaviour.”

Updated

11am AEDT update

Shane Fitzsimmons is speaking in Sydney now.

The NSW RFS commissioner says: “We are certainly starting to see an increase in fire activity … Up north, we’ve got a couple of the fires particularly that are starting to develop.”

There are gusts exceeding 70km/h in many parts of the ranges.

Closer to Sydney, the Mount Gosper fire in the Hawkesbury is likely to impact the communities of Howes Swamp and Mellong. Later today it could spread to St Albans, Upper MacDonald and areas north of Wisemans Ferry.

Updated

The Sydney protest also heard a message from Sian, a schoolgirl on the north coast, who lost her home and said the fires were unlike anything we’ve seen before.

“The fire was unstoppable,” she said. “I’ve heard from those who stayed, of walls of flame 40 metres high. It was catastrophic.

“For many of us, this is where we have lived our entire lives. Our only home has been ravaged by a firestorm. This is not normal. Never have I heard of so many houses burning down in one night. Australia is on fire, we need desperate climate action.”

Fiona and Aaron, who lost their family home on the NSW north coast, speak at rally outside Parliament House
Fiona and Aaron, who lost their family home on the NSW north coast, speak at rally outside Parliament House. Photograph: Ben Doherty/The Guardian

Fiona and her husband Aaron lost their family home – that they built themselves – on the north coast.

“For me there has never been a better time to talk about climate change,” Fiona said.

Aaron said the communication in fire-affected areas was poor. With power out and mobile towers affected, people weren’t able to get information about the fire situation around them.

“There are people now today whose lives are at risk, and we’re talking about thoughts and prayers.”

Updated

About 1,000 protesters gathered outside Sydney’s Parliament House on Macquarie Street for a hastily convened demonstration demanding urgent climate action this morning.

Protesters carried signs reading: “Scientists were wrong: it is much worse” and “If now is not the time to talk about the climate emergency, when the hell is?”

Simon Clough, the former deputy mayor of Lismore, said fires had threatened his property for weeks and remain burning on a ridge 5km from his house.

“I’m a country person, perhaps the leader of the National party would like to know that,” he said. “But I stand with you ‘loony lefties’ or whatever it is, because climate change is real. And we are experiencing it at this moment.”

Speeches were interrupted with cheers of “Up the Fireys” and sustained cheers for the Rural Fire Service.

Simon Clough speaks at rally outside NSW Parliament House demanding climate action
Simon Clough speaks at rally outside NSW Parliament House demanding climate action. Photograph: Ben Doherty/The Guardian

Updated

Army training exercise may have started Gold Coast fire that destroyed homes

A report from the ABC says an army training exercise may in fact be the cause of a Gold Coast hinterland fire on Saturday that destroyed homes.

The Australian defence force declined to answer questions from the ABC, but a colonel from the Kokoda barracks conceded in a message to the local rural fire brigade that the army may be responsible.

In a Facebook message to the Lower Beechmont Rural Fire Brigade page, Colonel Arran Hassel said: “We have not formally investigated the cause of the fire, but I am conscious that we had an army unit conducting training in the east of the training area the week when the fire started.

“As a part of their training a small fire was started, burnt out an area of 3m by 3m, but we believed we had extinguished it.

“It is entirely possible that this fire reignited on Sunday 27 Oct and has led to the current fire.”

The defence force has been mobilised to provide assistance to all bushfire affected areas.

Updated

The NSW education minister, Sarah Mitchell, has confirmed that some schools were damaged by fires yesterday.

She told Sky News that in the catastrophic fire danger areas: “All schools that might be close to bushland, close to nature reserves, they are automatically shut. Areas where there is high risk, we would much rather keep students out of harm’s way ... we want to take that cautious approach.”

Updated

The commissioner of the RFS, Shane Fitzsimmons, will be giving regular updates today – on average every two hours, but more frequently during peak times.

We brought you the 9am update live, when he said no new fires had started in catastrophic areas. The next one is in 15 minutes.

The updates are scheduled for: 11am, 12pm, 2pm, 4pm, 5.30pm, 8pm – all AEDT.

Updated

Vision from Port Macquarie.

Here’s a new prediction map for the north coast. There is some significant spreading predicted around Port Macquarie, compared with last night’s expectations.

A printable pdf version here.

Updated

The latest weather observations from the Bureau of Meteorology in some of the catastrophic areas:

Merriwa and Maitland airport in the Hunter are already at 30C with gusts of 32km/h and 20km/h respectively.

Nowra in the Illawarra is also above 30C, with gusts of up to 43km/h.

Full NSW observations are here.

Updated

Here’s the latest on air quality. On the table below, PM2.5 particles are the one to watch out for.

Readings have surged past 300 at Newcastle and Armidale over the past 24 hours.

Updated

The fires have also forced the Coffs Harbour-based Rally of Australia car race, part of the World Rally Championship, to shorten what would have been a title-deciding race.

The route will be shortened from 324.53km to 94.37km, with that stage used repeatedly, according to Reuters.

Updated

According to GoFundMe, more than $250,000 has been raised in the past 72 hours for bushfire victims and firefighters. Donations have come from more than 30 countries.

Updated

The NSW premier, Gladys Berejiklian, has responded to claims from the fire brigade union that its budget has been slashed. She said claims $13m was cut from the urban firefighting budget was false, AAP reports.

Fire Brigade Employees’ Union state secretary, Leighton Drury, said Fire and Rescue NSW had its budget cut by $12.9m.

The Rural Fire Service usually handles NSW bushfire-fighting efforts, but Drury said the cuts were harming the overall community response to fires.

Berejiklian told ABC Radio that this was not true. “Whenever I’m updated at RFS, the fireys, all the agencies, are working together more closely than I’ve ever seen,” she said.

A spokesman for the emergency services minister, David Elliott, said the $13m had been part of fire and rescue’s capital expenditure budget and was not part of recurrent FRNSW funding.

This morning a snap rally was held outside NSW parliament calling for increased emergency funding to fire services and action on the climate crisis.

Updated

Some newer figures: 57 fires, 28 uncontained. The weather is still on track for the predicted conditions.

Updated

There are 54 fires burning in NSW, 26 of them uncontained, 13 of them at watch and act.

“For the rest of the day, we really need people to stay alert, stay informed, and stay safe and act in accordance with your plan and the advice that might be given out throughout the day,” Shane Fitzsimmons says.

Updated

There are no new fires yet in any of the catastrophic areas, Shane Fitzsimmons says.

“We still have, though, these fires burning up in northern NSW, which are starting to increase in activity, and we’re getting reports of some fire spread particularly in the fires further up in the northern areas of NSW,” he says.

“There’s been a number of tactical backburning operations.”

Updated

9am AEDT update

The NSW RFS commissioner, Shane Fitzsimmons, is speaking in Sydney now.

“We are starting to see an increase in the wind speeds, especially in the ranges,” he says. “We are expecting those to continue to strengthen from 10 to 11 o’clock late morning.”

“Now is the time to exercise those decisions to leave, leave early and go to safer locations, safer towns or safer places in your community such as shopping centres.”

Updated

Here is a map of those more than 100 existing fires that Stuart Ellis was mentioning.

Map of NSW and Qld fires in past 24 hours

Updated

The chief executive of the peak body for fire services, Stuart Ellis, has told Radio National today his main advice is to “get out” of fire-prone areas.

He said today was especially worrying because there are already existing, “significant” fires, even before the catastrophic conditions developed.

“We knew [Black Saturday] was coming and the potential impact of that day, and we know now that this is coming,” he said. “We have not faced many days like this and the concerning thing about today in NSW in particular and also in Queensland, is that there is already significant fire in the landscape.

“On Black Saturday there was a small number of fires in Victoria. A large number of fires developed. In NSW today there are already a large number of fires.

“The only safe place to be is somewhere else. I’m an ex-SAS officer, I’m pretty capable, but I would not consider staying at my home today because under these circumstances it is not viable. It is not safe to do so.”

Updated

The Taree Show Society has opened its grounds to people who want to camp with their dogs and horses.

“We have put some 113 horses in stables and we have set up sites for people in caravans, trucks and tents,” said the society’s Rhonda Crisp.

“We have been feeding more than 100 people in our tea rooms every night with donated food. We have showers and toilets, if you are in trouble we are more than happy to help. Though of course people are very stressed and upset.”

Casey Miller from Old Bar has been living between a borrowed truck, horse float and car in the showgrounds with her friend, their four dogs and two horses for four days: “We are OK, it is just that we’ve had to adjust and put life on pause. We don’t know when we are going home. It is going to depend [on what] is coming with hot temperatures and bad winds, it all depends on that.”

Scores of people leaving farms and acreages are paying for accommodation in motels and hotels. Glennis Cochicho, who manages Taree’s Crescent Motel, turned away between 200 to 300 people at the weekend.

“The phone has been ringing off the hook,” she said. “I’ve had to repeatedly disappoint people who I know are stranded, and it’s an awful situation.”

Updated

From a correspondent, Christine Tondorf, in Taree:

There are queues at petrol stations, schools are closed and Mid-Coast council has suspended non-essential services as fires continue to burn in the region.

At the day’s start, there were no fires at emergency levels, but the Hillville Road fire, just south of Taree, is at a watch and act level. Tuesday’s forecast is 36C and the town is covered in a haze of smoke.

Many of the 100 evacuees sheltering at the local returned services club were able to check on their homes on Monday with the reopening of key roads, including the Pacific Highway.

Not all evacuees wanted to see their properties. Linda Ross, who lives at the Purfleet caravan park, has had word that her van is not damaged but she is fearful of going home ahead of the catastrophic conditions.

“I am now just so terribly, terribly tired and, if my van burns down, I’ll get another one.”

For people on farms and acreages, Monday was also the day for deciding – stay or go. Many women, children and pets (dogs and horses) moved into town, while men chose to stay and defend.

A woman from the Hillville area, who declined to be named, arrived at the Taree showground with her two horses. “My husband is still up at the house and is going to keep an eye on everything,” she said. “He will try to protect it, if the fire comes through. He’s just like a lot of other men there.”

Updated

More on air quality – a reading for the state shows metropolitan Sydney is as high as 125 on the air quality index, which is deemed unhealthy for sensitive groups.

It’s 161 in Newcastle, which is unhealthy for all, and 174 in Armidale. Twenty-five is the World Health Organisation’s recommended safe level.

Updated

In Queensland, there are now 55 fires blazing this morning, but none at emergency level.

There’s a severe fire danger warning for the south-east coast – which includes Brisbane and the Gold and Sunshine coasts – and the Darling Downs and Granite Belt region.

Firefighters from interstate will arrive today, as well as 10 elite firefighters from New Zealand.

Updated

A reminder of what those conditions mean:

  • We are expecting 37C temperatures all across the state, with wind gusts of up to 70km/h.
  • The fire perimeter is roughly 1000km as of this morning
  • Embers can jump 20km to 30km in front of a fire front, starting spot fires
  • More than 1m hectares have already burnt this fire season so far, the equivalent of the last three seasons put together

Updated

We are still on track for today’s catastrophic forecast, as of 8.16am AEDT.

It may be calm in some parts of the state, but the weather is still set to make this one of the most dangerous days the state has seen, the RFS says.

Four updates from Queensland this morning. Four fires remain at prepare to leave: Tarome; Clumber and Moogerah (south of Boonah); Mount Alphen and Double Top; Rosevale (south west of Ipswich).

These Tarome, Clumber and Moogerah and Rosevale fires are “not directly impacting properties”, but Queensland RFS say this “could change quickly and those who haven’t already left, should be ready to leave”.

The Mount Alphen and Double Top fire is likely to have an impact on the Cunningham Highway.

Yesterday the deputy prime minister, Michael McCormack, said that drawing the link between climate change and bushfires was “woke capital-city greenies ravings” and “cheap political point scoring”.

Adam Bandt responded, saying that former fire chiefs had warned the government that pollution and climate change would make bushfires worse.

“They have ignored some pretty clear warnings and attempts to meet from former fire chiefs,” he said. “This is about saving lives and Michael McCormack can call me whatever names he likes. The first duty of government should be to protect its people and do everything it can to minimise the risk of loss of life and Michael McCormack and Scott Morrison are failing at that.”

Find full audio here.

Today’s Australian, meanwhile, has taken aim at the Greens by repeating senior Nationals talking points, and referencing the supposed hazard reduction issue.

Also on the site’s front page is a story headlined “Even Nimbin hippies blame greenies”.

Only one person is quoted in the story actually blaming the Greens: Michael Balderstone, a “hemp candidate, deep environmentalist and leading figure in the Nimbin community”.

Updated

The Greens MP, Adam Bandt, has been on Radio National this morning, responding to claims from senior Nationals MPs that the Greens are to blame for the fires owing to their opposition to hazard reduction burns.

Bandt rubbished the claims, saying this was a matter for the NSW government.

“Can I say to Barnaby Joyce, the Greens are not in power in the NSW government,” he told RN Breakfast.

“We support hazard reduction burns. That’s in our policy, available there in black and white. We support effective and sustainable backburning strategies guided by the fire authorities. We will listen to what the fire authorities say.”

Updated

Air quality readings for Greater Sydney, the Central Coast, the Northern Tablelands and the Hunter range from “very poor” to “hazardous” this morning.

In Sydney, there are particle readings between 150 and 199, with over 200 in the tablelands. Yesterday NSW Health put out out an alert that people with asthma, emphysema and angina should be careful.

People affected should avoid outdoor physical activity and stay indoors, with doors and windows shut.

Updated

Haze is already hanging over Sydney this morning.

Haze over Sydney Harbour
Haze over Sydney Harbour. Photograph: Ryan Pierse/Getty Images
Smoke covers Bondi beach
Smoke covers Bondi beach. Photograph: Ryan Pierse/Getty Images

Updated

Even more schools have closed since yesterday evening, when the list was at more than than 575 closures.

As of 6.10am AEDT, there are now more than 600 schools closed. The full list can be found here.

Updated

Catastrophic fire danger warnings

Welcome to our continuing coverage of the bushfire crisis across New South Wales and Queensland.

Today, there are catastrophic fire danger conditions across the Illawarra and Shoalhaven, the Greater Hunter and Greater Sydney. The catastrophic rating is equivalent to the conditions of Victoria’s Black Saturday bushfires of February 2009.

For those in fire-affected areas, please stay tuned to your local emergency broadcaster, have a bushfire plan in place, follow instructions from fire crews and avoid bushland areas.

Full alerts from the Rural Fire Service can be found here for NSW, and here for Queensland.

Those on the north coast should also note this map. “Fires will spread quickly,” the NSW RFS says.

And it’s important to remember that it is still extreme fire danger forecasts or the Central Ranges, North Western, North Coast, New England, Southern Ranges and Northern Slopes.

In Queensland, fire danger will increase to severe in the Darling Downs and Granite belt today.

As of 7am:

  • There are 54 fires already burning in NSW, 25 uncontained.
  • There is a statewide total fire ban in effect
  • More than 575 schools are closed and aged care homes are on high alert
  • Some regional coach and rail services are cancelled
  • The NSW premier, Gladys Berejiklian, has declared a state of emergency, lasting seven days

Updated

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