Weather expected to fan Australian wildfires

Firefighters battling wildfires in the Australian territory of New South Wales are expecting the weather to hamper their efforts to contain the blazes in the coming days.

A spokesman for the fire department said: "Over the next couple of days, we’ll see a gradual deterioration, with a rather bad day being forecast for Sunday, which is a couple of days earlier than we had originally hoped."

Many of the bush fires, which have been helped by scorching temperatures and high winds, are so erratic that efforts to control them are failing.

There are now two giant fires closing in on the perimeter of Sydney and posing a threat to houses in the city’s suburbs.