Much of New South Wales will be under high fire danger today, with Rural Fire Service crews on high alert.

Transcript

00:00Well, RFS crews are particularly concerned about the triple threat of conditions that

00:07New South Wales are facing today.

00:08It's going to be hot, it's going to be dry and it is going to be windy.

00:13Now it's the Hunter region, or the Greater Hunter region, that is the primary cause of

00:18concern today for those RFS crews.

00:21They've imposed a total fire ban, as well as categorising that particular part of New

00:26South Wales as extreme fire danger today.

00:30There's also a total fire ban in place for the north-west of New South Wales and high

00:35fire danger warnings practically from the Victoria-New South Wales border all the way up to the Queensland

00:41border as well.

00:42The Riverina currently has a high fire danger warning.

00:46The Greater Metropolitan Sydney area, Shoalhaven, the Illawarra, all the way up to the north-west

00:51and western slopes of New South Wales.

00:54Now, that concern by RFS crews is mainly around those hot, gusty winds, particularly blowing

01:00south to southwesterly.

01:02Now, there are about 63 current fire warnings across New South Wales.

01:08Almost half of those are currently at advice level.

01:11The concern by the RFS is that these hot, gusty winds may potentially pick up and accelerate

01:16some of those smaller spot fires.

01:19Now, over the weekend, we saw a major blaze in Warrowing Heights in the Shoalhaven area

01:24that at one point was actually elevated to an emergency level.

01:28That was particularly, given RFS crews were concerned, it may be advancing towards residential

01:35areas.

01:35Although RFS crews were able to take advantage of cooler conditions last night, that blaze

01:40currently at advice level.

01:42But it was able to burn through 28 hectares.

01:44There's another blaze in Glen Alice, which is about 50 kilometres north of Lithgow, on

01:50the other side of the Blue Mountains from the coast here in New South Wales.

01:54Now, that is a serious concern for RFS crews today.

01:58It's obviously in quite a remote part of the state.

02:01There's also that concern that that gradient and that that terrain could potentially accelerate

02:08that blaze when it does kick off.

02:10Now, it's burnt through about 60 hectares of bushland at the moment, and particularly

02:16with these conditions in place for the rest of the day, RFS crews will certainly be on

02:22high alert in the Blue Mountains region of New South Wales.

02:26Now, it's obviously not just the Blue Mountains.

02:28There are warnings all the way across New South Wales, although the RFS do say that these hot

02:34and dry and gusty conditions that are expected to hang around throughout most of today are

02:40expected to ease by tomorrow.