Sweltering temperatures, forty fires causing concern as New South Wales enters bushfire season

Dozens of fires are burning across the Australian state of New South Wales, putting everyone on edge for a repeat of last summer's deadly bushfires. 

Sydney has broken records for its scorching heatwave by recording the hottest November night on record, with the temperature sitting at 30C at 4am.

Forty fires across NSW along are burning right now - two are out of control - and the threat they bring on a 40C day is huge.

"It certainly is a challenging day," NSW Rural Fire Service commissioner Rob Rogers says. "It is the worst conditions we've seen, and obviously as we're about to go into summer proper it's ominous."

It's an unsettling feeling after last summer's devastating bushfires. They raged for weeks, destroyed 2500 homes, and killed 26 people. 

It's not even summer yet, and the fear is this weekend's record-breaking heatwave could fuel that all again, with temperatures breaking the 40C barrier on Saturday and Sunday. 

"We're going to stay inside in the air con and definitely out of the sun," one person said.

"It's been a nightmare right now with all the flies," another said.

A nightmare, which is exactly how many described Saturday night's heat. It never dropped below 25C, making it the warmest night on record since the 1960s. 

"It was boiling, sweaty all night. Especially because we're students and don't have air-con," one person said.

There will be some respite from this sweltering heat - a southerly is set to come through and the temperatures will drop. But the worry is the thunder and lightning that it's also bringing because it was lightning that ignited last summer's bushfires. 

And with fires inching closer to homes on a scorching spring day, it's harder to escape not only the heat but the threat of another devastating bushfire season.