NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell (2L) says he will be discussing the State Mine fire with PM Tony Abbott. Source: AAP
LEADERS have praised the legions of firefighters and residents who stared down NSW's 10-day bushfire crisis that is only now easing.
But amid the camaraderie and consolation there were concerns about bushfire burnout setting in - a full month out from summer.
"It's just terrifying that we're sitting here in spring and we've had all these hot fires," Blue Mountains Mayor Mark Greenhill told AAP on Friday.
"There's still a lot of unburned bush and we've got the height of summer to come."
His community has been hardest hit by the bushfire crisis that began last week.
More than 200 local families have lost their homes and all three of the blazes burning at a watch and act level on Friday were in the mountains west of Sydney.
At Springwood in the mountains, what had been the most destructive fire in the state was being controlled after burning more than 3,300 hectares and.
Fires at Mount York and the State Mine Fire in Lithgow, started by an army explosives exercise, were also being brought under control.
Firefighters were patrolling and mopping up at Gateshead in the Lake Macquarie area where a fire had threatened homes at Dudley and Redhead, the RFS said.
More than 800 firefighters remained on the state's firegrounds on Friday and just over 50 fires continued to burn, but many interstate and metropolitan firefighters have begun the long drive home.
Governor-General Quentin Bryce toured the charred lower Blue Mountains suburbs of Winmalee and Springwood.
"Thank you for what you've done," she said, speaking not only to locals but to the 2000-odd firefighters from across the country who joined in the effort to save lives and homes in NSW.
Tributes flowed on Friday for pilot David Black, who died when his aircraft crashed while fighting a fire at Wirritin in Budawang National Park, west of Ulladulla.
His was the second life lost in the fires. A 63-year-old man died defending his Central Coast home last Thursday.
Deputy Commissioner Rob Rogers said there was a sense of hiatus at the Rural Fire Service (RFS) headquarters, but dangerous fire weather could hit within days and dozens of fires continued to burn across the state.
"The fact is it's going to take weeks, not days, to get containment on all these fires," he told AAP.
"People do get fatigued - particularly when it's warning after warning going out to the same communities."
No one should be under any illusion that the dire scenarios predicted for Wednesday - like the fear that major fires could merge to form a super fire spanning the Blue Mountains - were over-hyped, he said.
Firefighters had worked "way beyond" the hours they would ordinarily be allowed to put in, forgoing sleep to run risky back-burning operations around the mountains in a bid to avoid catastrophe.
"I genuinely did fear that we were going to lose people in that fire," Mr Rogers said.
"The community tends to view the fact that we didn't have mayhem and destruction by saying, 'Oh, well it didn't happen'.
"Well it didn't happen because a lot of people worked hard to stop it happening."
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