Bushfires destroy set for TV soap Home and Away

THE set for the popular television series Home and Away has been destroyed in the bushfires ravaging Australia.

Ironically, the show's producers had planned to finish the season with a cliffhanger about fire ripping through the fictitious town of Summer Bay.

But they decided against the idea, finishing the soap's current series last Friday with a different plotline finale.

Executive producer John Holmes said the fires destroyed the Jackaroo Ranch at Annangrove, in Sydney's north-west. The location has been used for 15 years to film some of the soap's main scenes.

Meanwhile, hundreds of people were forced to flee their homes as firefighters struggled to contain the towering flames as the worst bushfires in a generation raged out of control around Sydney yesterday.

As night fell, strong, hot winds continued to fan more than 60 blazes around Australia's largest city, including one in a park just six miles from downtown.

An intense blaze sprang up in the Blue Mountains, 55 miles west of Sydney, yesterday, destroying one home and forcing evacuations.

Amazingly, only three homes were destroyed despite inferno conditions throughout the city as 3,000 firefighters, backed up by dozens of water bombing aircraft and home-owners armed with hoses, buckets and wet towels, beat back flames.

"The immediate environs of Sydney have probably not faced a threat like this for 20 to 30 years," said New South Wales state Rural Fire Service Commissioner Phil Koperberg. "We're going to be in trouble in New South Wales until it rains," he said.

Light rain fell last night in southern Sydney, but had little impact on fires there.

Firefighters have been warning for months that Sydney faced a devastating bushfire season and their worst fears are being realised. The city and Much of New South Wales state has been gripped by devastating drought for months.

Police said they arrested an 18-year-old student and charged him with starting one of the blazes on Wednesday.

Others are believed to have been started by people tossing cigarette butts out of car windows an offence officials said could draw a 14-year prison sentence.

A 73-year-old man died of a heart attack as he tried to herd horses away from a fast-advancing wall of flames, emergency services said. He was the only reported casualty.