Australian Defence Force deployed to NSW for fires

Australian Defence Force personnel deployed to the wildfires-affected town of Eden in southern New South Wales state on Friday to help with the recovery efforts.

Landing crafts from the Royal Australian Navy ship HMAS Adelaide transported personnel and vehicles including water trucks to help the nearby affected communities.

"Our role is really to just tap into the existing community, through the whole of government effort approach, to support the recovery now of the bushfires in the Bega Shire Valley," Australian Army Captain Kez West said.

The move comes as communities across Australia's fire-ravaged southeast were bracing for a long day of mounting danger as thousands abandon their homes for evacuation centers and military helicopters dropped emergency supplies to towns at risk of being isolated by blazes fanned by rising winds.

The danger is centered on New South Wales and Victoria, Australia's most populous states, where temperatures and wind speeds are escalating after a few days of relatively benign conditions.

The New South Wales Rural Fire Service has warned that coastal towns south of Sydney including Eden, Batemans Bay and Nowra could again be under threat weeks after losing homes to the fires.

Temperatures in the threatened area were expected to reach into the mid-40s Celsius (more than 110 degrees Fahrenheit) on Friday, and conditions remained tinder dry.

The unprecedented fire crisis in southeast Australia that has claimed at least 26 lives, destroyed more than 2,000 homes and scorched an area twice the size of the US state of Maryland since September has focused many Australians on how the nation adapts to climate change.