Cool break for Blue Mountains firefighters One home has been destroyed, but firefighters have used cooler conditions in the Blue Mountains to contain a bushfire which they believe was deliberately lit. A charred shell was all that remained of the Beatties' family home at Cliff Drive on Katoomba's outskirts on Sunday - its corrugated metal roofing buckled and blacked. But thankfully, the boat was saved. " (It was) good news, because the boat we were most concerned about outside in the back is still untouched," Helen Beattie told the Seven Network. The fire, which the Rural Fire Service suspected was deliberately lit, was still burning out of control in the valley below the gutted home but was no longer posing a threat to properties on Sunday. RFS Inspector Ben Shepherd said the fire could have been lit at a lookout near the home, as that's where the initial call came. He lambasted the suspected arsonist. "It's extremely frustrating that someone like that wants to get their thrills out of putting someone's life at risk," he told AAP. The Beattie family had only a moment's notice before flames engulfed their home. "It was a pretty close call," Carl Beattie told the Seven Network. The main thing is that everyone got out safe. The weekend's first big test of the bushfire season came as the Blue Mountains community continued its recovery from blazes that destroyed more than 200 homes in Winmalee and Springwood in October last year. Cooler conditions on Sunday night are expected to help fire crews take control of the Blue Mountains fire. Insp Shepherd said more than 30 blazes were burning out of control across the state on Sunday, including one that threatened properties in the Hunter region. "Now we're identifying some containment lines, and that threat to homes has subsided," he said. The fire produced so much smoke it could be seen from the Newcastle CBD, he said. Crews will spend the night backburning to help bring the fire under control. While the weather has cooled, fire danger was expected to increase in the coming week with a return to warm, dry and windy weather conditions, he said. More than a thousand firefighters were out over the weekend, with about 700 still fighting flames on Sunday evening.