Firefighters were working round-the-clock Thursday to snuff out blazes in Australia's south-east before hot weather predicted for the weekend makes for a return of perfect fire conditions.
January's record-breaking heatwave has seen lightning strikes ignite hundreds of forest fires, reducing homes to ash, killing livestock and blackening pastures.
"There's a lot of work by firefighters necessary ahead of deteriorating weather conditions over the next couple of days," said Bob Rogers, deputy fire chief in New South Wales, the most populous state.
"We're talking an area under fire right now of something like 370,000 hectares across New South Wales - a huge undertaking," he said.
More than 100 fires were burning in the state, and a fire ban was extended to Friday, meaning that no open fires were allowed outside homes.
Estimates of livestock losses in the state go higher than 10,000 with farmers going through the grim task of shooting injured sheep. No human deaths have been reported.
Firefighters were working to prevent a blaze called the Dean's Gap fire near Nowra, 160 kilometres south of Sydney, from reaching a former military range that could be scattered with unexploded bombs.
Rural Fire Service spokesman Brett Loughlin told the national broadcaster ABC that it was unsafe for water-bombing aircraft to enter the area.
'It's a total no-fly zone, and that will mean [if] the fire gets into that area, there's nothing we can do for it except wait for it on the other side," he said.
In the island state of Tasmania, where an estimated 1 per cent of the land area has burned and 126 properties have been lost, earlier projections of up to 100 dead were discounted almost a week after the fire hit.
"We're still yet to complete our search process, but our hopes are growing that we'll come through this without loss of life," acting Police Commissioner Scott Tilyard said.
Thousands of tourists trapped by the flames that cut off the Tasman Peninsula have now been escorted out in convoy.