State sits in the line of fire

The same rain that gave farmers an almighty boost in winter disrupted the NSW Rural Fire Service's schedule of hazard reduction burns.

Now, extensive grass and forest growth awaits an El Nino-driven summer which is set to be hot and dry.

"There's no doubt the rainfall in winter was good for farming but it was evidently also good for fuel," said NSW RFS Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons.

"Those cooler conditions impeded our ability to do our hazard reduction burns and while we did get 70 per cent of the work done, it's certainly not where we want to be."

The NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service had burnt 33,700 hectares since July and was on-track to meeting its target of 135,000ha.

"We're working on a reserve-by-reserve basis to manage fuel loads ahead of summer," said the service's senior manager of fire and incidents Naomi Stephens.

Last month the Bushfires and Natural Hazards Co-operative Research Centre forecast large areas of southern Australia, especially along the east and west coasts extending inland, would face above normal fire potential for the 2015-16 fire season.

Last week's unscheduled revision of the Bureau of Meteorology's October to December outlook indicated the coming months would be drier and hotter than usual.

It said El Nino would likely peak at the end of 2015 and break up in the first quarter of 2016.

"Unfortunately we know the type of weather we saw dominate our long weekend is what's going to be characteristic of the summer ahead. Clearly we can't ignore the potential outcome of this," Mr Fitzsimmons said.

However, the window for hazard reduction burning wasn't yet over.

The NSW RFS had about 80 planned burns this week and would continue to do burns for the next few weeks.

Burning was also continuing in the state's national parks.

"We know there will come a point pretty soon where it will be too dangerous and risky to continue with the burns but we're going to take advantage of every opportunity we can until then," Mr Fitzsimmons said.

Private landholders could also continue their preparations for the season ahead.

"A successful burn can become unsuccessful pretty quickly, so we advise the public to carry out their hazard reduction work as carefully as possible."

Commissioner Fitzsimmons felt confident the NSW RFS were equipped with an arsenal to manage the season's fury.

"We now have a DC-10 Very Large Air Tanker which can carry 44,000 litres of water and this will join Thor, our C-130 Hercules water-bomber which can hold 15,000L. Between the two of them we can reach anywhere in NSW within an hour."