Worse than expected fire conditions ahead in Australia's New South Wales: author

All schools, including child care centers and pre-schools in the Blue Mountains, will be closed on Wednesday and weather conditions are expected to be worse than first thought, Australia's New South Wales Rural Fire Service (RFS) said on Tuesday.

The RFS says Wednesday's conditions will be more dangerous with high temperatures, dry air and strong winds up to 100 km an hour.

"The conditions are expected to be actually worse tomorrow than what we've been talking about for the last few days," RFS Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said.

"We're talking about an adjustment in the temperatures to be slightly hotter and an adjustment to the humidity to be somewhat drier."

Fitzsimmons warns of a difficult and challenging day ahead for communities right across the Hunter and greater Sydney and the Blue Mountains.

"There is a very real potential for more loss of homes and loss of life," he said.

Fitzsimmons said light showers earlier on Tuesday did not slow the advance of the fires at Lithgow, Mt. Victoria and Springwood.

Fifty-nine bushfires are currently burning across New South Wales, with 17 of them uncontained.

More than 208 homes have been reportedly destroyed and one man has been killed since the New South Wales bushfires broke out last Thursday.