The terrifying scale of Australia's bushfire disaster is beginning to emerge.

A mass exodus from southern New South Wales is underway, with long lines of cars clogging highways leading right back to Sydney and Cambra Far officials have told holidaymakers to urgently leave a long stretch of coastline before Mawr.

Ferocious fires are expected to sweep in over the weekend.

Not everyone wants to go.

Just all the locals.

I could say they're all nervous and anxious and everyone's just on edge.

Looking at the queues here.

It would be a long, long trip.

We actually think would be better off staying Here are motorhomes parked by the water.

If anything does happen, we can just go down to the water for the fire itself is colossal.

Flames have been reported to have reached 70 meters hind that these pictures from Monday show huge blazes in the state off Victoria.

The plume of smoke generated by the inferno covers 5.5 1,000,000 square kilometers.

That's the size of Europe.

That's thick.

Black cloud is now drifting towards new Zealand and its pristine, snowy mountains on glass years.

Let's take you live to fill Mercer, who joins us now live from Sydney on.

We're not even at the peak off the bushfire season filled.

But what makes this crisis unprecedented is that this fire season has started much earlier than normal.

And these fires are more white, spread the normal, and they are burning with an intensity that few Australians have ever seen.

So this is really the challenge facing Australia's authorities, the federal government, state governments and also the fire services in many Australian states.

How do they cope with infernos on this scale on what's happened in southern New South Wales or what happened on New Year's Eve really came at the worst possible time.

This is a very popular tourist destination.

Many families, residents, retirees and other people would have bean down on the coastline enjoying Christmas and New Year's festivities.

And that's why the evacuation is so chaotic and complicated.

There are so many people in the fire zone.

Some don't want to leave others air trying to leave, but can't because of various road closures.

Adding to this sense of unease and unpredictability is the fact that there are shortages of food, fuel and water, and also Internet and phone services have gone down.

So that's adding to this great sense of unease as thousands of people continue to pour out of that region on elsewhere.

Phil.

Extraordinary stories of personal survival.

We're hearing it left, right and center, and I think when you add up all the emotions that have bean swirling around in this crisis that has bean trauma, there has bean grief, anxiety, fear, unpredictability and also great resilience and strength, and also a great deal of good fortune as well.

We've seen firefighters taking footage from inside their fire engines as they go through, literally a massive fire storm, having to put up protective blankets to protect themselves of blankets to the windows.

Also, homeowners who have heroically battled those flames.

Others have literally had to drive their cars into the water of lakes, and other people have gone into the water at the beach to escape the flames.

So these extraordinary stories there are many off them on.

The expectation is sadly, that will be hearing many more of them because this crisis shows no sign of ending.

Okay, fill in Sydney with the latest Thank you very much indeed.

Well, as we've been hearing, smoke from the bush fires in Australia has blown to New Zealand, blanketing some of the country's retreating glass years.

Some of these pictures, I think we could just show you now from Twitter show the ash covered snow or one of the country's biggest tourist attractions, the Franz Josef Glass.

Here.

Some climate change.

Scientists fear the ash, which drifted 1900 kilometers across the Tasman Sea, could absorb mawr.

Heat on melts no more quickly.

This'll Some of New Zealand's glasses are already shrinking, with scientists predicting they could disappear completely by the end of the century.

People elsewhere in the country also working up to a hazy sunrise smoke smothering towns nation wide.