Fire and rain promised for parched Australia

Sydney, Dec 29 : Warnings of "catastrophic" fires went out across Australia's west Tuesday just as farmers in the east of the continent were herding livestock to higher ground following heavy rainfall.

Temperatures above 42 degrees in the west have combined with gusty winds to prompt a catastrophe-level forest fire warning from West Australian state Fire and Emergency Services spokesman Rick Tyers.

"We're not saying it will, but if it should occur, then people should be making their fire survival plan, putting it into place well and truly in advance of the event occurring," Tyers said.

In the west, flash flooding is what New South Wales State Emergency Services (SES) spokesman Phil Campbell is fretting about.

"If rain continues and the predicted height is reached, some 1,500 people in the upper reaches of the Bellinger Valley may become isolated," he said.

More than 100 SES volunteers are deployed, complete with boats and seven helicopters to ferry food and feed to stranded people and animals.

Some farmers barely holding up against 10 years of drought have recorded their highest December day rainfall in 107 years.

Gunnedah wheat farmer Mick Laughrey was over the moon about days of rain that had turned the Castlereagh River from a dried up creek bed into a torrent.

"It was just a dust bowl last week as we hadn't had a drop of water in 12 months, not a drop," Loughrey told the Daily Telegraph. "Our dam is half-full now. Now we can start planting."

Rain also brought relief in the state of Victoria, in the south of the continent, where volunteer firefighters were sent home to spend Christmas and New Year with their families.