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The NSW bushfire season has claimed its first life, with the body of a man found in burnt-out bushland on the south coast.
As much of the firefighting effort centred on Tuesday on the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney, where fires were raging out of control, a smaller blaze at Nelligen, near Bateman's Bay, proved fatal.
NSW police said Rural Fire Service (RFS) firefighters found the body near a fenceline after responding to reports of a bushfire on a rural property.
"The cause of death is yet to be established but it looks like he has been overcome by the smoke and flames," a police spokesman said.
The small bushfire was contained on the rural property.
Firefighters fear strengthening overnight winds will fan two major blazes in the Blue Mountains.
Temperatures dropped to the low 30s and winds eased late this afternoon, but wind gusts of 80 kilometres per hour had been expected to push through the Grose Valley at around 3am Wednesday.
The RFS welcomed a revised forecast pushing the wind change back to 4am, saying the closer it was to daybreak the better, with waterbombing aircraft unable to fly at night.
"At this stage, having a couple of extra hours (before the wind change) is good news for us," an RFS spokeswoman said.
Around 400 firefighters and 18 waterbombing aircraft spent the day trying to slow the blazes that have so far burnt out more than 8,000 hectares of the Blue Mountains National Park.
The biggest of the fires was burning on a massive front about four kilometres north of Blackheath.
Backburning efforts in the mountains continued throughout the night, with a 35 kilometre containment line being prepared to protect the bigger townships in the Blue Mountains.
RFS Commissioner Phil Koperberg said the towns of Mt Tomah and Mt Wilson were vulnerable to the wind change.
He also said the village of St Albans, 90 kilometres north-west of Sydney, could come under threat from a new bushfire that broke out in the Wiseman's Ferry area on Tuesday.
While there is no immediate threat to property in the mountains area, residents have been warned to fireproof their homes as much as possible, and to prepare a plan to stay or leave early if the fire approaches.
Elsewhere in the state, a fire in the Muswellbrook region of the Hunter Valley is totally uncontained but presents no immediate threat to property.
A fire near Hay in the state's south may also threaten isolated farm properties, while a blaze in Forbes, in the central west, has been contained and another in Oberon, west of the Blue Mountains, is almost contained.
A total fire ban has been declared for much of the state on Wednesday, including the Greater Sydney and Greater Hunter areas, the Illawarra and far south coast, southern and central ranges, the upper and lower central west plains and the eastern Riverina.
Victoria blaze
Firefighters still battling a blaze that has blacked out more than 9,000 hectares in Victoria's west were hoping to have it contained overnight Tuesday.
One hundred and twenty firefighters are fighting the fire at Victoria's Little Desert National Park, about 40 kilometres north-west of Horsham in Victoria's west.
The fire was sparked by lightning about 5pm Monday and has since blackened 9,300 hectares of the national park.
A Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE) spokeswoman said a separate fire sparked at the park by lightning had already burned about 100 hectares, about 20 kilometres from the Kaniva township, but the two were yet to join.
While the fires have burnt through private farm land, no properties have been lost.
