Eight fixed-wing water-bombing aircraft, and nearly two dozen firefighters, are battling a blaze between Narrabri and Bingara.

Inspector Brett Loughlin, from the Namoi-Gwydir RFS, says reports came in after lunch on Wednesday of a fire burning on the Caroda Road.

He says aircraft have flown from Narrabri, and Scone in the Upper Hunter, to try and contain the blaze before strong winds push it into more mountainous country.

“The fire burning there is approximately 100 hectares in size and we currently have 22 firefighters working from five fire trucks on that fire,” he said.

“Ground crews are being supported by up to eight fixed-wing water bombers in an effort to put the fire out and limit its spread to as small as possible so that we don’t have to deal with this fire for days to come.”

Meantime, on the New England, lightning strikes have started fires in the wake of a dry thunderstorm that’s just passed through the region.

Inspector Steve Mepham, from the New England RFS, is urging residents to step outside to see if grass is burning on their property.

“We’ve had a storm cell come through and we’ve had reports of lightning starting fires down the bottom end, Uralla and Kingstown area,” he said.

“We’d really appreciate if people could just go to a bit of extra trouble to go outside and have a wander around and see if they can see smoke [because] obviously the sooner we can get resources on to these the more chance we have of keeping them small.”

Elsewhere in the region, 20 firefighters are continuing to battle a blaze between Bundarra and Barraba.

Inspector Steve Prior, from the Tamworth Zone RFS, says a lightning strike started the fire on Monday night.

He says it’s burned nearly 150 hectares.

“There’s six appliances currently out there at the moment, that’s as in fire tankers aside from the dozer,” he said.

“There’s an additional five or so private vehicles as well from the local community members and there would be something in the order of 20 firefighters as well as the community members themselves.”

A Total Fire Ban remains in place across the entire region until midnight on Wednesday.

All 13 local government areas in the North Western, Northern Slopes and New England fire areas are covered by the ban.

The Fire Danger Rating currently stands at Very High.