Sydney's New Year's Eve fireworks display faces being cancelled at the last minute, following public outcry about the event being held while bush blazes rage across the country.
The Rural Fire Service has not ruled out axing the show as concerns mount about the risk of the bonanza causing further bush fires in the country.
A petition calling for the display to be cancelled has been signed by more than 250,000 people, however the City of Sydney Council has vowed to continue with the event.
Police, fire and council officials are working on plans to scrap the show if the fire risk in the city increases from 'severe' to 'catastrophic'.
The display is due to go ahead today, despite the country being in the grip of a 40C heatwave.
New South Wales Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons told a press conference that he was not concerned about scrapping the display if he deemed the fire risk to be too high.
He added: "The pyrotechnics organisations and local authorities are used to working with us around exemptions in the summer period, whether it is Christmas, New Year or some other event.
"They know the arrangements, the procedures, and we will work through to make sure that risk is appropriately addressed and, where necessary, we won't allow them to go ahead."
City of Sydney events organiser Tanya Goldberg argued that preparations for the event had been ongoing for 15 months, with much of the budged already spent.
She added that cancelling it would ruin tens of thousands of people's New Year's Eve plans and also harm local businesses.
Ms Goldberg said: "We know that cancelling the fireworks will have zero practical benefit for those fire-ravaged communities.
"The one thing that will help those communities is to go ahead with the event and leverage the power of it to drive people to donate, to demonstrate their generosity by going to the Australian Red Cross disaster relief and recovery fund."
Some councils in New South Wales have already cancelled their fireworks displays due to the risk of bush blazes.
