A lightning strike sparked the fire south of Jingellic Road, Wantagong on the ‘Moombril’ property on late Saturday evening which then spread into the Woomargama National Park.

The fire broke containment lines at Wantagong early Sunday afternoon and spotted into Mount Narra Narra in the Woomargama National Park before heading towards Yenches Road, prompting the Rural Fire Service (RFS) to issue text message warnings to Jingellic and Yenches Road residents.

While calm Sunday night weather allowed back burning operations to be carried out, the fire broke containment lines again on Monday morning along the Mandaring and Tin Mine trails before being waterbombed by aircraft.

The fire continued to burn into Monday afternoon across about 2420 hectares in the national park and a private property.

Additional Rural Fire Service (RFS) crews from Tumbarumba were at the scene throughout Monday afternoon.

Aircraft water bombed the area to give fire fighters a view of where containment lines had been broken.

Large backburning operations continued throughout Monday night with bulldozers and graders worked to strip the ground at containment lines to bare earth in an effort to halt the fire’s movement.

About 70 RFS, Country Fire Authority and NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service fire fighters and three aircraft were at the scene from Monday night.

RFS Southern Border Team community safety officer Julie Bartlett said the Monday Night backburn was encouraging.

“It was cooler overnight and the wind dropped which assisted the firefighters to get on top of it,” she said.

Winds of up to 20 to kilometres and hour were forecast for Tuesday with temperatures in the mid to low 30s throughout the day.