New South Wales Rural Fire Service said firefighters were “over the moon” as the number of bushfires across the state fell from 60 to 42 in a single day.
But the wet weather – the biggest rainfall in almost 20 years – has brought its own risks, with officials warning of flash floods and landslides.
NSW Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said: “There’s lots of smiles around the place. It is breaking the back of this fire season, no doubt.
“The rain is good for business and farms as well as being really good for quenching some of these fires we’ve been dealing with for many, many months.
“We don’t want to see lots of widespread damage and disruption from flooding, but it is certainly a welcome change to the relentless campaign of hot, dry weather.”
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“We expect rainfall to continue to fall across a lot of these firegrounds and that will result in a number of those being declared contained and hopefully we will be confident we won’t see new ignitions from anywhere in those firegrounds,” he added.
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Victoria still had 21 bushfire warnings in place, though the rain was steadily making its way down the coast and into the northeast of the state.
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“It was fantastic to wake up to much-needed rain this morning!” tweeted the city’s Lord Mayor Clover Moore.
“Today has already been the wettest Sydney day in 15 months, and thankfully it’s raining across NSW where we need it most.”
