North West area a concern for RFS as weather warms up, with fires taking hold around the Moree area

On Monday, parts of the Northern Slopes saw their first high fire danger rating for the year.

As the weather warms up and conditions dry out, calls for grassfires and bushfires are trickling in for crews who have not stopped.

"We're getting callouts plus the normal motor vehicle accident calls and obviously supporting flooding operations and now we've got to turn back to the fires," North West Rural Fire Service (RFS) Area Commander Heath Stimson told the Leader.

"We've continued to get grassfires despite the rain, which people might not believe.

"We had quite a big grassfire in Moree the day after the peak of the flood went through there last month."

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On Monday, a water bomber had to be called in to help extinguish an out-of-control blaze near Moree.

The blaze took hold on a property near Back Pally Road just before 3pm and quickly took off, before crews got the upper hand on the ground thanks to the aerial backup.

On Sunday, a car fire kept crews busy, while a haystack fire took several hours to extinguish on Saturday night.

"The landscape is starting to drying out, and the strong winds on the weekend assisted that," Mr Stimson said.

"That will start to impact on the conditions we see going forward."

The North West is a particular concern for RFS crews.

"There is a large amount of growth, particularly in the grassland areas across North West NSW and we're preparing for that because as that dries out it will become a significant issue for us," Mr Stimson said.

He said volunteer firefighters have spent months carrying out flood deployments across the state.

Local crews have been rotating on deployments in the Central West most recently which is reeling after record flooding. RFS crews have been sent to Forbes, Parkes, Moree, Gunnedah, Deniliquin, Moama as well as in the incident control centres in Sydney and Wollongong.

"We're preparing for a busy summer, and now hopefully they'll get a bit of a breather before the weather warms up," Mr Stimson said.

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