Sydney bushfires ravage house

A bushfire set a home ablaze outside Sydney today while searing winds fanned over100 wildfires raging in the city's suburbs.

The property consumed by flames was in the Shoalhaven region, on the coast south of Australia's largest city. The Rural Fire Service said the fire was threatening other homes in the vicinity.

Residents have been evacuated but a fire service spokesman said: "The fire is so fierce that the firefighters have had to pull out."

Meanwhile, Sydney's north-west still faced a significant threat. A fire storm, thought to have been started by an arsonist yesterday, was today burning through the Lane Cove national park, which runs through several affluent Sydney suburbs.

Residents there were today hoping a 250m long clearing bulldozed through bushland yesterday would hold back a fire burning dangerously close to houses.

Officials said more than 250 homes have been saved since the crisis began on Christmas eve and that the downtown area was not in danger. In Sydney's centre, however, light white ash fell on office blocks and the smell of smoke permeated air conditioning systems.

While there have been no casualties from the blazes, the fires have blackened 300,000 hectares (741,000 acres) of forest and farmland.

Police have said that at least half of the wildfires have been deliberately lit, some by children. Helicopters have tackled the blaze from the air while firefighters used water from pools on the ground.

The situation worsened today when southern hemisphere summer temperatures in some areas rose above 38 degrees Celsius (100 F) and dry Outback wind gusts gained strength. The humidity level was expected to drop below 5%, the lowest recorded in 50 years.

Overnight, as winds dropped and the blaze eased, fire crews worked hard to build firebreaks.

But by this morning, hot westerly winds regained their strength and whipped the flames. Red hot embers were blown into the air to start new spot fires.

"It is about as bad a picture as you could conjure up," Phil Koperberg, New South Wales state fire chief, said. "I have never seen anything like it in my 32 years of service."

Residents continued to join the thousands who have already fled their homes as separate blazes today joined and formed several massive fire fronts that reached about 2,000km in length.

Around 600 people fled Bowen Mountain village in the Blue Mountains, 80km west of Sydney, ahead of a 60km wall of fire.

At least 21 arson suspects, including 14 children, have been arrested and police were searching for others. The seven adult suspects face a maximum penalty of 14 years in prison if convicted.

Police said there was no apparent motive for the adults to set the fires. The younger suspects, one of them only 9 years-old, appeared to be mischief makers bored during the current summer school vacation.

"I want to rub their noses in the ashes they have caused," New South Wales Premier Bob Carr said of the juvenile suspects, who were mainly in their teens. "I want them to meet the people they have put at risk."

Around 20,000 firefighters are being stretched to their limits by the wild weather. Hundreds of reinforcements were being flown in from other Australian states and neighbouring New Zealand.

Meanwhile, government officials announced a formal inquiry into the cause of the fire crisis.