A large bushfire in the New South Wales central west has returned to Watch and Act level after firefighters hoped to take advantage of favourable conditions.
The Alpha Road Tambaroora blaze broke out on Sunday afternoon after a lightning strike and has since burned out more than 16,600 hectares in rugged terrain near Hill End, north of Bathurst.
Four homes and five outbuildings have been destroyed and a further nine damaged.
There are still more than 120 properties yet to be assessed.
The fire surged to Emergency level three times this week and 700 head of livestock have been lost.
Calmer weather on Thursday, followed by a cool night, allowed the Rural Fire Service (RFS) to gain the upper hand for the first time.
However, RFS Inspector Ben Shepard said there had been an increase in fire activity near Hill End Road and Posey Hill Road.
"We have got a lot of trucks in the area but it is the first bit of increased activity that residents are going to notice across the course of the day," he said.
"This is typically when we see conditions at their warmest and driest, we have seen each day a little bit of an increase in activity around this time."
Mr Shepard said while no properties were at risk at the moment, that could change due to the size of the fire zone.
"If the fire isn't contained we have some 120 kilometres of fire edge that we need to deal with," he said.
"There is the risk that in the coming days we could see small increase in activity that could result in properties coming under threat."
Containment lines strengthened
Overnight, the fire was dropped to Advice level for the first time in five days.
"A quite busy night for our crews, but everything's going to plan," RFS Inspector Michael Gray said.
"The weather was great. It was on our side."
Inspector Gray said crews would "take advantage" of today's weather forecast.
"Keep strengthening our containment lines, and blackening out any edges that we have. Crews are doing some minor back-burns around houses and things as the fire is approaching them," he said.
Windy conditions are set to return over the weekend and more hot weather is expected towards the end of next week.
Inspector Gray cautioned people to take "extreme caution" over the coming days.
"Please be vigilant, please keep an eye on things, be very cautious with the use of fire. We've got a lot of dry grass as we've all seen," he said.
The RFS has set up a base camp in Mudgee to support firefighting teams, which will be bolstered today by crews from the South Coast.
Goulburn fire
A grass fire burning out of control near Goulburn has been upgraded to Watch and Act.
The blaze is burning at Jerrara Road at Marulan, with authorities warning there is a "heightened level of threat".
