While half of New South Wales recovers from Tropical Cyclone Alfred, the other half is hot, dry and windy - and a total fire ban is in place for many areas, the NSW Royal Fire Service says. Photo: Supplied/ NSW Royal Fire Service
Australia's New South Wales has been sweating in a heat wave that has raised the risk of bushfires and prompted authorities to issue a total fire ban for state capital Sydney.
New South Wales, coming to the end of a high risk bushfire season that runs until the end of March, was a focus of a catastrophic 2019-2020 "Black Summer" of wildfires that destroyed an area the size of Turkey and killed 33 people.
On Sunday, the nation's weather forecaster said temperatures would be up to 12 degrees Celsius above average in some areas of the state, with temperatures in Sydney, Australia's most populous city, set to hit 37C .
At Sydney Airport, the temperature was already 29.3C at 9:30am local time, more than three degrees above the March mean maximum temperature, according to forecaster data.
Gusty winds, "hot conditions and low relative humidity will result in extreme fire danger over the greater Sydney region," the forecaster said on its website.
The state's Rural Fire Service said on X that a total fire ban was in place for large swaths of the state, including Sydney, due to the forecast of "hot, dry and windy conditions".
In neighbouring Victoria state, a home was destroyed in a bushfire on the outskirts of Melbourne, which was being battled by around 200 firefighters, Country Fire Authority official Bernard Barbetti told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.
Climate change is causing extreme heat and fire weather to become more common in Australia, a bushfire-prone country of around 27 million, the country's science agency said last year.
- Reuters
