NSW-QLD bushfires reported

Below is image captured from the Sentinel website of the hotspots in the northern NSW/ southern QLD region. Purple dots are the most recent hotspots (as of this afternoon) and yellow ones are 0-12 hours old.

Several media reports regarding bushfires in northern NSW today. All are from ABC News.

• Outside help to aid in bushfires fight

Bushfires burning in the Lismore, Kyogle and Richmond Valley areas of northern New South Wales are now beyond the control of local firefighting resources.

As of this evening, these fires are listed on the NSW RFS site as 'Being Controlled' or 'Contained'. Five separate incidents have burnt on the order of 700 ha. They are not visible on the hotspot image below (?)

• Busy start to northern tablelands' fire season

It has been a busy start to the firefighting season on the New South Wales northern tablelands, with four blazes burning east of Armidale and Glen Innes.

These are listed NSW RFS site as 'Being Controlled'. A couple of them have burnt in excess of 1000 ha each. There are visible in the image, near the region marked with the blue '1'.

A second large area of fire is visible in the image in southern QLD by the blue '2'. The fire is burning in Barakula State Forest. A very dense smoke plume is also apparent with this fire. From NAFI, I roughly estimated the size of this fire at ~8000 ha. I have found no mention of it. Prescribed burn or wildfire is unclear, though the latter suspected.