Photo gallery: Bushfires in Australia reach "catastrophic" level
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This undated handout picture provided by New South Wales Rural Fire Service (NSW Rural Fire Service) on Jan 8, 2013 shows a NSW Rural Fire Service worker spraying water on a bush fire at Green Point in New South Wales. Bushfires raged out of control across Australia's most populous state on Jan 8, fanned by intense heat and high winds in "catastrophic" conditions that threatened homes and triggered evacuations. -- PHOTO: AFP / NSW RURAL FIRE SERVICE
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This undated handout aerial picture provided by New South Wales Rural Fire Service (NSW Rural Fire Service) on Jan 8, 2013 shows a bushfire burning 8km south west of Naradhan, north of Griffith in New South Wales. Bushfires raged out of control across Australia's most populous state on Jan 8, fanned by intense heat and high winds in "catastrophic" conditions that threatened homes and triggered evacuations. -- PHOTO: AFP / NSW RURAL FIRE SERVICE
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This undated handout picture provided by New South Wales Rural Fire Service (NSW Rural Fire Service) on Jan 8, 2013, shows smoke billowing as a bushfire burns near Green Point in New South Wales. Bushfires raged out of control across Australia's most populous state on January 8, fanned by intense heat and high winds in "catastrophic" conditions that threatened homes and triggered evacuations. -- PHOTO: AFP / NSW RURAL FIRE SERVICE
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Clothes hang from a singed clothesline in a backyard affected by a bushfire at Boomer Bay, about 40km east of Hobart, Jan 8, 2013. Australian fire crews battled hundreds of wildfires, a searing heatwave and powerful, hot outback winds on Tuesday, but were hopeful they had dodged a potentially catastrophic fire day without loss of life or major damage. -- PHOTO: REUTERS
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Fire fighters battle a grass fire in Oura, near Wagga Wagga in New South Wales on Jan 8, 2013. Bushfires raged across Australia's most populous state on Jan 8, fanned by intense heat and high winds in "catastrophic" conditions that have put thousands of firefighters on high alert. -- PHOTO: AFP / AAP
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Smoke rises from the Yarrabin bushfire, burning out of control near Cooma, about 100km south of Canberra Jan 8, 2013. Bushfires raged out of control across Australia's most populous state on Tuesday, fanned by intense heat and high winds in "catastrophic" conditions that threatened homes and triggered evacuations. -- PHOTO: REUTERS
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Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard inspects the burnt remains of the Dunally school in southeast Tasmania on Jan 7, 2013 after wildfires destroyed more than 100 homes on the southern island of Tasmania over the weekend with police still hunting for some 100 people still unaccounted for. -- PHOTO: AFP
This undated handout picture provided by New South Wales Rural Fire Service (NSW Rural Fire Service) on Jan 8, 2013 shows a NSW Rural Fire Service worker spraying water on a bush fire at Green Point in New South Wales. Bushfires raged out of control across Australia's most populous state on Jan 8, fanned by intense heat and high winds in "catastrophic" conditions that threatened homes and triggered evacuations. -- PHOTO: AFP / NSW RURAL FIRE SERVICE
This undated handout aerial picture provided by New South Wales Rural Fire Service (NSW Rural Fire Service) on Jan 8, 2013 shows a bushfire burning 8km south west of Naradhan, north of Griffith in New South Wales. Bushfires raged out of control across Australia's most populous state on Jan 8, fanned by intense heat and high winds in "catastrophic" conditions that threatened homes and triggered evacuations. -- PHOTO: AFP / NSW RURAL FIRE SERVICE
This undated handout picture provided by New South Wales Rural Fire Service (NSW Rural Fire Service) on Jan 8, 2013, shows smoke billowing as a bushfire burns near Green Point in New South Wales. Bushfires raged out of control across Australia's most populous state on January 8, fanned by intense heat and high winds in "catastrophic" conditions that threatened homes and triggered evacuations. -- PHOTO: AFP / NSW RURAL FIRE SERVICE
Clothes hang from a singed clothesline in a backyard affected by a bushfire at Boomer Bay, about 40km east of Hobart, Jan 8, 2013. Australian fire crews battled hundreds of wildfires, a searing heatwave and powerful, hot outback winds on Tuesday, but were hopeful they had dodged a potentially catastrophic fire day without loss of life or major damage. -- PHOTO: REUTERS
Fire fighters battle a grass fire in Oura, near Wagga Wagga in New South Wales on Jan 8, 2013. Bushfires raged across Australia's most populous state on Jan 8, fanned by intense heat and high winds in "catastrophic" conditions that have put thousands of firefighters on high alert. -- PHOTO: AFP / AAP
Smoke rises from the Yarrabin bushfire, burning out of control near Cooma, about 100km south of Canberra Jan 8, 2013. Bushfires raged out of control across Australia's most populous state on Tuesday, fanned by intense heat and high winds in "catastrophic" conditions that threatened homes and triggered evacuations. -- PHOTO: REUTERS
Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard inspects the burnt remains of the Dunally school in southeast Tasmania on Jan 7, 2013 after wildfires destroyed more than 100 homes on the southern island of Tasmania over the weekend with police still hunting for some 100 people still unaccounted for. -- PHOTO: AFP
SYDNEY (AFP) - Bushfires raged out of control across Australia's most populous state on Tuesday, fanned by intense heat and high winds in "catastrophic" conditions that threatened homes and triggered evacuations.
More than 130 fires were burning across New South Wales state, 40 of them uncontained, state Rural Fire Service commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons told reporters in Sydney.
"You don't get conditions worse than this, we are at the catastrophic level," he said.
