Australia's bushfire-stricken east welcomes drenching rain

Heavy rains leading to thunderstorms diminished the bushfire on Australia’s east coast on Friday, reliving firefighters that have been working tirelessly. It also relieved farmers that have been struggling with years of drought.

Australia, famous for its pristine beaches and wildlife, has been fighting bushfires since September, with fires killing 29 people and millions of animals, and destroying more than 2,500 homes while razing an area roughly a third the size of Germany.

Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland, three of the most affected states by drought and bushfires welcomed the drenching rain this week, with fire services saying the falls will not extinguish all the blazes, but will aid greatly containment.

"Our fingers are crossed that this continues over the coming days," New South Wales fire services said on Twitter on Friday.

Severe storms are forecast to continue in many fire-stricken regions of New South Wales and Queensland, including areas that have not seen heavy falls for years, Bureau of Meteorology in NSW said, easing slightly the state's three-year drought.

"The recent rain has just been absolutely fantastic," said cattle farmer Sam White near the town of Guyra in nothern NSW.

"It's producing significant amounts of runoff, which is what we need, and it's getting into our dams.

While the wet weather brings relief to fire fighters and drought-hit farmers, it also comes with dangers, such as flash flooding and falling trees, many structurally destroyed by the intense bushfires. One wildlife park had to rescue koalas from floowaters and beat back crocodiles with brooms.

The heavy downpours have helped to clean smoky air in Australia, but Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne remained on Friday in the world's top 100 polluted cities, according to AirVisual's pollution ranking for major global cities.

Melbourne, sheathed by a tick smoke earlier in the week that disrupted the Australian Open qualifying matches and other sporting competitions, is forecast to again be blanketed by unhealthy air over the weekend when the grand slam begins.

The smoke haze that has plagued Australia's major cities for weeks has been tracked by NASA circumnavigating the globe and the space agency satellites showed on Thursday there is also a large concentration of lower smoke over the Pacific Ocean.