Outback Queensland is set to bake on Wednesday, with Birdsville set to challenge the record for Australia's hottest-ever spring day.
The mercury in Birdsville is forecast to peak at 43degC, just shy of Australia's spring record of 43.1degC set in Roebuck, outside Broome in Western Australia, in 2003.
The weather bureau says Birdsville is in with a chance of breaking that record, which was set on the same date, September 27, 14 years ago.
Other towns in Queensland's channel country will not be far behind Birdsville, with Bedourie, Boulia, Quilpie, Thargomindah and Windorah headed for 42degC as another spring heatwave sweeps parts of the state.
Fire ban in NSW
Meanwhile, a total fire ban has been declared in the far western district of New South Wales as rural fire crews contend with more than 100 blazes across the Australian state.
A burst of hot, dry and windy conditions has kept firefighters busy in the first week of school holidays and the Bureau of Meteorology predicts it will continue on Wednesday.
In some areas of the far west, temperatures will exceed 40degC, average wind speeds may reach 50 km/h and the relative humidity will hover around 5%.
Forecaster Rob Taggart said there was a trough approaching from the southwest with strong and hot winds ahead of it.
"Those winds are dragging a really hot air mass from central northern Australia," he told AAP.
"That's bringing really hot conditions from out near the Northern Territory into the north west of NSW."
The fire danger level was rated as severe for the far western region and very high for the upper central west plains, north western and northern slopes districts.
"This is fairly unusual for the far western fire district because there's not a lot of forest there and there's not a lot of grassland there, either," Mr Taggart said.
"The conditions are really, really bad to get fire danger ratings into the severe category."
The focus is predicted to shift to the state's far northeast during the second half of the week.
