Good afternoon. Extreme fire risks and heatwave warnings have arrived early, as the Bureau of Meteorology confirms El Niño has begun.
Communities on the New South Wales south coast, hit hard by the black summer bushfires, spoke of their “anxiety” as the fire danger today was upgraded to “catastrophic”. An extreme fire risk has been forecast across Sydney and the Greater Hunter tomorrow, while bushfire evacuation notices were given to two Queensland communities near Townsville. There were 61 fires burning across NSW today with 13 yet to be contained.
