The Guardian - 1/12/13, Alison Rourke
As crews battle 'atrocious conditions' fire chiefs say that lives have been saved by better ways of predicting outbreaks
A pall of smoke over the coast of Queensland: 'Until we get some substantial rain, we will have a landscape susceptible to fire,' says one fire chief. Photograph: Glenys Simpson/AFP
Australia's heatwave set a new high of almost 50C as authorities warned that large uncontrolled bushfires would continue to threaten areas in the south-east of the country.
Meanwhile, in remote Moomba, a gas exploration and processing town in the outback of South Australia, the temperature hit 49.6C by mid-afternoon, making it the hottest of the two-week spell, and 48.6C in the town of Bourke, 500 miles north-west of Sydney.
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