Bushfires so far this season have scorched more than 4 million hectares of bushland and destroyed over 1000 homes, including 381 homes on the south coast just this week.
At the peak of the summer holiday period, tens of thousands of holidaymakers were urged to leave national parks and tourist areas on the NSW south coast and eastern areas of Victoria before a return of temperatures above 40degC and strong winds on Saturday.
Victoria has declared a state of disaster for the first time, giving authorities broad powers to compel people to leave their properties and take control of services, similar to the state of emergency that has been declared in NSW.
Andrew Crisp, emergency management commissioner for Victoria, urged people in at-risk areas to leave their homes immediately and not count on luck to avoid disaster.
"This is your opportunity to get out. It is not just the fires we know. It is the new fires that might start today," he told ABC News.
Another death from the fires in NSW was confirmed on Friday, taking the toll in the state this week to eight. Two people have died in Victoria's fires, and 28 others are unaccounted for.
GRIM OUTLOOK FOR WEEKEND
In NSW hot temperatures were set to combine with dry lightning strikes and wind to add to the state's bushfire nightmare over the weekend. But a number of days of respite were expected to follow.
Saturday's forecast paints a grim outlook for parts of the state - particularly the NSW south coast - already battling scores of uncontrolled deadly bushfires.
Heat is set to quickly rise on Saturday before a change sweeps over the state, Bureau of Meteorology acting NSW manager Jane Golding said on Friday. "In short, we've got a long hot day to get through first with some really dangerous fire dangers."
"That cold front bringing that southerly change, we're expecting that not to reach the far south coast ... until late in the day, to move through the Batemans Bay region early evening and come through Sydney about midnight."
The fire danger will reach extreme levels in some areas and the forecast late cool change is due to bring thunderstorms and lightning.
NSW faces a two-day total fire ban from Friday, the third seven-day state of emergency in as many months.
The navy's HMAS Choules and Sycamore started the evacuations of nearly 1000 of the 4000 people stranded on a beach in the isolated town of Mallacoota in far-east Victoria, federal member of parliament Darren Chester tweeted on Friday morning.
With all roads blocked, sea transport and some airlifts are the only way out of the stricken town. Each round trip could take a day or more.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison had called for calm on Thursday, before visiting the fire-devastated NSW town of Cobargo where he was not entirely welcome.
Video showed Morrison confronted by a group of angry locals, one of whom shouted he should be "ashamed of himself" and said he had "left the country to burn".
Morrison on Friday said he understood people were angry, and would not be distracted if they directed their anger at him.
"People have suffered great loss. People are hurting. People are raw. That's what happens in natural disasters," he said.
NSW Transport Minister Andrew Constance, whose represents the local area and is from the same party as the Prime Minister, said he had not heard from Morrison and did not know he was visiting the area.
"To be honest the locals probably gave him the welcome he probably deserved," he told Channel 7.
Morrison's conservative government has long drawn criticism for not doing enough to address climate change as a cause of Australia's savage drought and fires.
Anthony Albanese, head of the opposition Labor Party, called for a national response to a national emergency.
"We haven't, in my lifetime, had people on beaches waiting to be evacuated in life jackets...like it's a peacetime version of something that we have seen during wartime. This is not business as usual," he said in a media conference.
The New Zealand Government said it would send another 22 firefighters next week. Since October, New Zealand has deployed 157 firefighters to Australia.
A contingent of 39 firefighters from North America landed in Melbourne this week, bringing to almost 100 the number of US and Canadian experts who have flown in to help deal with the crisis.
