Fire in Australia burns near former military range

The blaze at Dean's Gap in New South Wales is just a kilometre from an area used by the military as a bombing range until the 1970s.

More than 100 separate fires are still burning in the state, razing at least 300,000 hectares of land.

Forecasters predict another hot spell at the weekend.

Temperatures are also rising in Queensland, where a bushfire started on Bribie Island, north of the city of Brisbane.

'Tornadoes of fire'

At the Dean's Gap fire near the Tianjara plateau, fire crews are confident they can stop the fire before it reaches the former military range, ABC News reports.

They are using special gels and bulldozers to carve out fire containment lines at the range, which is now part of a national park.

"We can't do any water-bombing with aircraft or something like that in case the weight of the water when it hits the ground sets off any unexploded ordnance," Brett Loughlin, from the RFS, told ABC News.

"So it's a total no-fly zone and that will mean [if] the fire gets into that area, there's nothing we can do for it except wait for it on the other side.

Seventeen fires remain uncontained in New South Wales, with the worst blazes burning in the state's south near Yass, Sussex Inlet and Cooma.

The Rural Fire Service (RFS) there said crews had worked around the clock to take advantage of cooler conditions brought on by a southerly wind.