The bushfire season in Australia has struck early with fire crews in Tasmania,
Victoria, South Australia and New South Wales continuing to fight a number of large fires.
Fire fighters armed with everything from helicopters to hoes battled an explosion of bushfires across south eastern Australia.
The fires burn amid warnings from the CSIRO that Australia faces the prospect of many more days of significant bushfire risk in the decades ahead because of climate change.
Tasmania
A bushfire, which may have been deliberately lit, has ripped through a mushroom farm in north-west Tasmania, causing more than $700,000 damage.
Two thousand tonnes of straw and a barn at Tasmanian Mushrooms, at Dulverton, were destroyed after sparks from the fire ignited the bales, business owner Doug Schirripa said.
Elsewhere in Tasmania fire fighters were trying to capitalise on cooler weather to contain a fire at Mount Rumney, near Hobart.
"It's looking much better than things were yesterday afternoon," Mr Reid said.
NSW fires
Fire fighters are close to containing a blaze in Sydney's south-west, while two other fires continue to burn in NSW.
A NSW Rural Fire Service spokeswoman said fire fighters had put in containment lines around the 45 hectare fire in Kentlyn, near the Holsworthy Army Base.
The spokeswoman said high winds and temperatures of 36 degrees prevented the service from declaring the fire completely contained.
Meanwhile an 800 hectare fire in Kosciuszko National Park, near Khancoban in southern NSW, has yet to be contained a remote wilderness area.
The commissioner of the New South Wales Rural Fire Service, Phil Koperberg, says he is surprised to see so many bushfires raging in the country's south-east.
"It is virtually unheard of to have fires in the Kosciuzsko, in the Snowy Mountains at this time of year," he said.
Victoria
Fire fighters in Victoria are battling more than 40 bushfires, but have contained or controlled many of them as a weak cool change swept the state overnight.
Five bushfires remain out of control, along with a major fire that is burning on a 1.5km front in brown coal at the Morwell open cut mine in the Latrobe Valley, south-east of Melbourne.