More light has been shed on why there were so many school closures across the region on Monday, March 6.
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Over 20 near Bathurst, Lithgow and Oberon and more than 10 in the Orange area were deemed non-operational late on March 5.
The closures were in response to an "extreme" fire danger rating and a total fire ban being in place for the Central Ranges.
Rural Fire Service (RFS) crews would battle several bushfires and grassfires on Monday with the Hill End blaze near Bathurst still out of control as of Friday, March 10.
It's not uncommon for schools to be closed in the face of bushfire danger with around 600 schools in NSW shut down in late 2019 as the Black Summer fires raged.
Most notably, multiple schools in Orange were closed during the 2018 Mount Canobolas bushfire.
Schools are either proactively closed due to risk of fire or reactively closed due to perceived danger, the latter of which is at the direction of the RFS.
A spokesperson for the NSW Department of Education told the Central Western Daily that the schools were closed ahead of March 6 after an independent assessment and that it was not a new process.
"The health and safety of students and staff are our highest priorities," the spokesperson said.
"The decision-making process takes into consideration the fire danger ratings for the area and the individual bushfire risk rating of each school.
"The schools closed were independently assessed as having an extreme or high bushfire risk.
"The proactive closure of NSW Public Schools is not a new process and was in place prior to the 2019-20 bushfire season."
Two public schools remain closed as of March 10, they are Hill End Public School and Hargraves Public School, both of which are located in close proximity to the Hill End blaze.
Fire fighters push on
"We're not out of the woods yet."
That's the message from the NSW Rural Fire Service as the Hill End area fire continued to rage on its eighth day on Sunday.
Just over 17,400 hectares of land, to date, has been burned by the blaze, which ignited on March 5.
Although there were a number of showers on Saturday night [March 11], there was little relief on the fire front.
"We've seen a small amount of showers on the high ground overnight but this hasn't had any significant effect on the local fire," NSW Rural Fire Service public information officer, Kirsty Channon said.
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