Extreme fire ratings issued for Greater Sydney and Hunter
There are extreme fire danger ratings in place for the Greater Sydney and Hunter regions with total fire bans declared.
Transcript
00:00 These hot and windy conditions across New South Wales are seeing the fire risk increase
00:07 in some parts of New South Wales as well.
00:09 As you mentioned, the Greater Sydney region and the Hunter region are facing fire danger
00:14 ratings of extreme today.
00:16 So there are total fire bans in place for those regions as well as a total fire ban
00:21 issued for the upper central west plains where the fire risk is deemed high there today.
00:27 But education authorities say that no schools around the state will be closed today, that
00:32 they will all remain open.
00:33 Of course, yesterday, 30 schools around the state's far south coast were closed because
00:39 the fire danger there escalated to catastrophic fire risk danger rating there.
00:45 And the New South Wales Premier, Chris Minn, says that he is concerned about these conditions
00:51 happening in spring.
00:53 At least 65 fires are burning across the state right now.
00:57 They're all at advice level, so they're either under control or being controlled by firefighters.
01:02 Yesterday we saw some of those fires escalate to watch and act level before being downgraded
01:07 back to advice.
01:08 But we heard a short time ago from the New South Wales Premier, Chris Minn, this is what
01:13 he had to say about the conditions.
01:15 Look, we are concerned about it, I'm going to be honest.
01:18 So we've got catastrophic conditions declared on the New South Wales south coast yesterday.
01:22 35 degrees today and windy.
01:24 It comes off the back of three or four days in a row above 30 degrees and it's only September.
01:30 It's a good warning to the communities of New South Wales to have a fire preparation
01:34 plan in place for the summer that's coming up.
01:36 It's important for every community.
01:38 We want to make sure that lives and property is safe during the summer period.
01:42 Alison temperature records were broken yesterday.
01:45 How's the forecast shaping up today?
01:48 Corrina, the Weather Bureau is forecasting temperatures in the 30s for many areas in
01:54 New South Wales.
01:55 Of course, yesterday we saw temperature records tumble in some areas, especially the southern
02:00 and central regions of New South Wales.
02:03 Places like Wollongong and Kiama had their temperature records broken.
02:07 Also in Sydney, we saw our equal hottest September day on record.
02:12 It reached 34.6 degrees and the last time that happened was in 1965.
02:18 But the Weather Bureau is forecasting a top temperature of 35 degrees in Sydney today
02:23 so we may well see that record broken again today.
02:27 In terms of the next few days, we are expecting a cool southerly change to come in tomorrow
02:32 which will help to bring some relief to much of New South Wales and bring those temperatures
02:37 down.
02:38 We're still expecting a hot day in northeast New South Wales tomorrow as well.
02:42 [BLANK_AUDIO]