Bushfires in the inferno-stricken state of New South Wales (NSW) are all contained for the first time in months, the state’s fire service has declared.

Heavy rainfall has helped to bring several major blazes under control in recent weeks, aiding firefighters who have worked tirelessly since the unprecedented fire season began in October, earlier than usual.

The blazes have killed at least 17 people and ravaged 5.4m hectares of land in the eastern state. While firefighters have saved more than 14,480 homes, nearly 3,500 have been damaged or destroyed amid 11,264 grass and bush fires, according to the fire service. 

More than 800 million animals are thought to have been killed in NSW alone, with officials identifying more than 100 species in need of “urgent help” across the country as a result of their habitats being destroyed.

“In what has been a very traumatic, exhausting and anxious bush fire season so far, for the first time this season all bush and grass fires in NSW are now contained,” the rural fire service announced on Thursday evening.

“Not all fires are out, there’s still some fire activity in the far south of the state, but all fires are contained, so we can really focus on helping people rebuild,” a spokesperson said.

While there were than 20 contained fires still burning on Thursday evening, the current situation is of stark contrast to just 10 days ago, when there were more than 60 blazes, with at least 27 uncontained.

Major blazes to have been extinguished in recent days include the Myall Creek Road fire, which had burned across more than 120,000 hectares, and the Gospers Mountain fire, which razed more than half of that area.

The recent downpour is the biggest sustained run of rainfall experienced in Sydney and surrounding areas for 30 years, providing much needed replenishment to land and dams hit by nearly three years of drought.

But the intense storms and rainfall have been bittersweet. Severe flooding in some parts of the state led to evacuations, while power cuts saw more than 100,000 people left without electricity.

“This wet and windy weather is really wreaking havoc on our roads today, with paramedics responding to five car accidents every hour since Friday night,” a NSW Ambulance spokesperson told The Guardian on Sunday evening.

“We’ve responded to multiple trees that had fallen on to cars, trees into houses and units, and people trapped in cars in floodwaters.”

Despite the fresh hardships brought by the change in weather, the fire service’s announcement that all blazes had been contained was met with an outpouring of joy and gratitude. 

“Amazing and wonderful news reflecting an impossible amount of work by amazing and wonderful people,” one person wrote on Twitter, while another said: “Thank you. Every single one of you who gave up your time to fight these fires. To those we lost your sacrifices will not be forgotten.”

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