SYDNEY - Raging bushfires destroyed several homes and threatened others north of Sydney on Sunday as scorching temperatures and dry winds fanned fires across southeastern Australia.
Temperatures reached up to 44 degrees Celsius (111 F) in some areas, and firefighters were battling scores of blazes, although authorities said cooler weather and rain had brought relief to South Australia and Victoria. In New South Wales, Australia's most populous state, residents were evacuated from two small communities near Gosford, about 60 km (37 miles) north of Sydney, where three homes and some vehicles were destroyed by flames more than 20 metres (65 ft) high. "Black smoke covering the sun, just scorching hot, 44 degrees. It's burning up here," Mitchell, a local resident told Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio.
Major roads leading north from Sydney, Australia's biggest city, were closed, disrupting holidaymakers. Serious fires and evacuations were reported in several other areas, and one man was airlifted to hospital with burns after a fire in western New South Wales.
Thousands of firefighters were put on high alert before the extreme weather conditions and a ban on lighting fires in the open was in effect across New South Wales, much of Victoria and South Australia.
"The fires are widespread and breaking out right across the state," said New South Wales Rural Fire Service spokesperson Rebel Talbert.
GUSTS
A southerly cool change swept through Sydney late in the evening, bringing wind gusts of up to 110 km an hour, but was expected to help firefighters contain blazes on Monday.
In western Victoria, where a large bushfire destroyed seven homes near Stawell late on Saturday, rain helped firefighters contain the blaze that burnt out about 9,000 hectares (22,000 acres) of scrub and farmland.
Australia is scarred by bushfires every summer and every few years bushfires blaze into major cities which have fingers of bushland weaving through suburbs.
In January 2004, the deadliest bushfires in 22 years killed nine people and injured dozens in South Australia. The blazes were the worst since Ash Wednesday bushfires claimed 75 lives in South Australia and Victoria in 1983.
In 2003, bushfires destroyed a slice of Australia nearly three times the size of Britain, fuelled by one of the worst droughts in a century. Four people were killed and 530 homes destroyed when fire swept through the capital, Canberra, that year.
In 2002 and 1994, bushfires destroyed scores of homes in Sydney.