In the New South Wales Greater Hunter region, a business has been destroyed, but the true impact of two major bushfires is so far unclear.
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00:00 Fire conditions have slightly eased here this morning, but the threat is far from over and
00:06 you can get a sense of that with how much activity is happening from firefighters at
00:12 the moment.
00:13 There are fire crews around me in one of the streets here in Weston at the moment and we've
00:17 just had the water carrying helicopter fly over my head moments ago.
00:22 They are still working to control this fire here near Weston.
00:27 It reached an emergency level yesterday afternoon.
00:30 It was heading in an easterly direction, threatening the townships of Abermaine, Weston, Currie-Currie
00:36 and Perlore, Maine.
00:39 Firefighters worked really hard and tirelessly to protect houses in these towns.
00:44 Yesterday there were about 300 firefighters working on the blaze.
00:48 It's quite fascinating when you go around town and you can see that some buildings are
00:53 saved.
00:54 Behind me there is a tire business that has been destroyed by fire.
00:58 It was engulfed in flames yesterday.
01:01 There are people standing around here just trying to kind of take in exactly what's happened.
01:05 Many of them are feeling quite disheartened, quite upset and distressed, but they are all
01:12 saying they are so thankful that their family and friends and neighbours are okay.
01:17 This fire has gone down to an advice level now, however the Rural Fire Service is saying
01:23 that people need to remain on alert.
01:25 Not only is it going to get quite warm today and the wind is already starting to pick up,
01:29 but we are expecting extreme fire conditions tomorrow.
01:33 So they're working to contain this blaze.
01:35 They've been doing back burning to try and get on top of it ahead of tomorrow.
01:39 And schools have also been closed in this area as a precaution.
01:43 We don't know the extent of damage yet.
01:45 Fire crews are going around to do damage assessments today and that will give us a clearer indication
01:50 of just how many buildings and properties potentially have been lost.
01:53 Yeah, Romy, we can see the clean up at that tyre plant taking place behind you.
02:00 There was also a fire further south near Lake Macquarie.
02:03 Did that cause any damage?
02:07 That fire we don't believe has destroyed any properties.
02:11 It was much smaller than this one.
02:13 This fire burnt over 600 hectares.
02:16 That one looks like it's only burnt just over 60 hectares.
02:20 It was threatening towns like West Wolsend in Cameron Park yesterday afternoon and did
02:25 reach that emergency level, but it now has also gone down to the advice level.
02:31 But once again, those communities are being urged to remain on alert.
02:34 And that's mainly because tomorrow we are expecting to see the temperatures get close
02:39 to 40 degrees and there are high winds expected as well.
02:44 But there's also this area is extraordinarily dry.
02:47 We did have rain a couple of weeks ago.
02:50 However, in the time since then, it's been hot conditions.
02:53 So all the soils and vegetation has dried out.
02:56 So we can expect that if we do get those fire conditions, these fires could either flare
03:01 up or more could start in this area.
03:03 So the Rural Fire Service is really asking communities around here to stay vigilant today.
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