The fire, allegedly lit on Thursday, is still burning out of control on the Northern Tablelands.

The man was arrested on Friday afternoon and charged with intentionally causing a fire.

He will appear in Armidale Local Court today.

At the height of yesterday's hot and windy weather, four emergency-level fires were declared statewide with three in northern NSW.

The fire closest to Sydney, the Gospers Mountain fire, was downgraded to a watch and act after several hours, with firefighters working on property protection on Sydney's north-west outskirts.

The Gospers Mountain fire, about 40 kilometres north of Richmond, spread across more than 85,000 hectares and claimed one home yesterday afternoon, at a remote property on Putty Road at Colo Heights.

Four fire bans remain across areas of New South Wales as tamer conditions look to be offering firefighters some respite for at least this weekend.

The bans are in place for the Far North Coast, the Northern Slopes, the New England area and the north-west fire region.

For the past 10 years, Kim and Sandy Nadazdy have been running a dog kennel at Colo Heights.

During the bushfire emergency, the animal lovers had 30 dogs in their care and decided to stay and defend them and their home.

"We've been up all night defending our property with the help of the amazing firefighters — they have been fantastic," Kim Nadazdy told ABC News.

"The flames came really close but the dogs were our priority — we had no choice but to keep them safe."

Cooler conditions and a southerly change have allowed firefighters to strengthen containment lines for many of the bushfires burning across the state overnight.

Hot and windy conditions are forecast to return mid next week.

Inspector Ben Shepherd from the New South Wales Rural Fire Service said 1.5 million hectares had been burnt during the season so far.

"We're really just stuck in this pattern at the moment where we get a couple of days of reprieve from that really hot and dangerous stuff and then we're back into it again," he said.

Some 1,500 firefighters will be tackling about 60 fires across the state today.

Inspector Shepherd said firefighters were able to undertake some backburning at Gospers Mountain last night.

"People in that area are going to have smoke and fire activity now for a number of days, if not a number of weeks," he said.

"More than likely we won't have it under control before the onset of those warmer, windy conditions once again probably towards mid [next] week."

He said the RFS building impact assessment teams would be investigating the extent of the damage to homes and structures on the fireground.

Source | ABC