Cooler weather and light rain across southeastern Australia yesterday helped contain scores of bushfires that destroyed 15 homes and vast areas of farmland over the weekend. Firefighters said 27 bushfires continued to burn across the most populous state of New South Wales yesterday, and could take up to four days to fully control, although there was no immediate threat to homes. Up to 50 fires flared across the state at the weekend, fuelled by strong winds and temperatures that hit 44 degrees Celsius (111 F) in some areas. ?There are literally thousands of hectares of fire there and it?s going to take us about four days to get round all these fires and mop them up,? New South Wales Rural Fire Commissioner Phil Koperberg told reporters.

One ambulance volunteer died of a heart attack while helping people evacuate their homes north of Sydney, while one volunteer firefighter was seriously injured fighting a blaze at Junee, in the state?s west, where fire killed livestock and burnt about 25,000 ha (62,000 acres) of farmland. Among the properties affected was a farm belonging to national government powerbroker Bill Heffernan, a senator from New South Wales and a key political adviser to Prime Minister John Howard. Heffernan told Australian Associated Press he lost thousands of sheep and some cattle on his 1,400 ha (3,500 acres) property near Junee in a fire which came to the edge of his home on Sunday.

?You couldn?t see where the fire was ? it was just all dust and smoke, and the next thing the flames were there,? he said. ?It was a bugger of a day.? Thousands of firefighters had been put on high alert before the extreme weekend weather conditions and the lighting of fires in the open was banned across most of southeast Australia. Fires also struck South Australia and Victoria states on Saturday, with one blaze destroying seven homes in western Victoria and threatening several townships before the weather eased and rain helped bring the fires under control.