Anxious wait for devastated NSW residents

Damage assessment teams were on Sunday combing through the village before authorities give the green light for residents to return.

Matthew Deeth, the mayor of the neighbouring Wollondilly Shire Council, says the fires took a heavy toll on Balmoral.

"They were all banding together until they got hit yesterday and they were just decimated," he told AAP.

"Most people were pulled out of their houses and if there was nobody defending houses they kind of just all lit up."

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian says she wants residents to be able to get home as soon as safely possible.

"Even if people have lost their properties, they still want to go back to see what's left and if there is anything I can salvage, we know that's part of the recovery," she told reporters.

"We want people to have access to their land, to their property as soon as they can but it has to be safe as well and the expert teams will make sure that happens as soon as possible."

Ms Berejiklian said damage assessment teams had relayed the "devastating" news that "there's not much left in the town of Balmoral".

Balmoral, in the Wingecarribee Shire Council area, consists of about 150 houses with a population of about 400 people.

The community was already reeling after being hit on Thursday when the flames returned on Saturday during catastrophic fire conditions.

NSW Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons says as many as 100 buildings across the state may have been lost in bushfires since Saturday, including houses and other structures.

"The detailed analysis that is going on in the field now, will seek to differentiate between what is what is a home, what is a house, what is a shed. But the toll is significant," he told reporters. .

Most of the losses were from the Green Wattle Creek fire, the huge Gospers Mountain blaze northwest of Sydney and the Currowan bushfire on the South Coast.

Australian Associated Press