Two volunteer Australian firefighters died on Thursday night in the battle against blazes around Sydney, prompting Prime Minister Scott Morrison to cut short a vacation to return to the drought-ravaged country, SIA reports referring to Reuters.
Thousands of firefighters have been deployed to try and extinguish the flames. A fire truck hit a tree and rolled over just to the south of Sydney, killing the driver and a front passenger, police said. Three other passengers survived with injuries.
Earlier three other firefighters were engulfed by flames as fierce winds fuelled bushfires across the state of New South Wales. Two men were airlifted to hospital with burns to their faces, arms and legs, while a female colleague was taken by ambulance to hospital.
The casualties came as record-breaking heat and drought stoked over a 100 bushfires across NSW, with three massive blazes lapping at the outskirts of Sydney itself.
A southern change brought relatively cooler conditions on Friday, after the mercury topped 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) the day before, but the Bureau of Meteorology warned the scorching heat would return on Saturday. "There will be severe to extreme heat-wave conditions, deteriorating air quality and gusty wind changes which will lead to dangerous fire conditions once again," the Bureau said.
Sydney was blanketed in smoke on Thursday as bushfires burnt out of control to the south, west and north of the harbourside city, shrouding the Opera House and emptying beaches.
Australia on Wednesday broke all-time heat records for the second day running, with maximum temperatures reaching an average of 41.9 degree Celsius.
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