Heavy rains in New South Wales in recent days have led to hopes that all the bushfires in the Australian state could be out by the end of the week. Since Friday, parts of the fire-ravaged Australian state have experienced their heaviest rainfall in years. The rain caused widespread flooding – hundreds of people had to be rescued, including one man stranded in a tree.

The deluge has also extinguished 30 fires, leaving only four “uncontained”, said the NSW Rural Fire Service (RFS).

In total, 24 fires remain burning across the state. “Given the forecast, we should be able to get on top of those relatively quickly and set the fires down,” RFS spokesman James Morris told the BBC. “We are hoping by the end of the week we may be able to have zero uncontained fires across NSW,” he said. Officials have renewed wet weather warnings for parts of the coast and the neighbouring state of Queensland, but said the heaviest downpours had passed by Tuesday.(BBC)…[+]