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Sydney's air quality 'worse than Beijing'

The air quality in parts of Sydney is now worse than Beijing, an alarming new study has shown.

A health alert has been issued for the eastern half of Sydney with the air quality rated as poor.

Those with heart and lung disease are warned not to exercise outdoors while the poor rating means no fires can be lit under the conditions.

The current smoke levels. Source: 7News
The current smoke levels. Source: 7News

Much of the smoke is coming from fires north of Newcastle, where fire crews took advantage of cooler conditions on Monday night to build new containment lines.

The health alert has listed Earlwood as the worst affected of Sydney’s suburbs in the past 24 hours.

Fire crews working north of Sydney. Source: 7News
Fire crews working north of Sydney. Source: 7News

The alert comes as new research shows more than 100,000 Sydney properties are too close to bushland and at risk this bushfire season.

Hornsby has nearly 20,000 homes with 100 metres of bush, Ku-ring-gai has almost 16,000 while Sutherland and The Hills each have 12,000 homes within that dangerous distance.

According to the Macquarie University-affiliated Risk Frontiers report, a house within 50 metres of a major blaze has a 60 per cent chance of being lost.

The survey identified Gosford and the Blue Mountains regions as the home to the most at-risk homes near Sydney, with 26,595 and 23,068 addresses within 100m of bush.

“The good thing (about the report) is it gets you thinking about what you might be confronted with, and what you might do, even before the fire event,” RFS spokesperson Stuart O’Keefe said.

But chief geospatial scientist with Risk Frontiers, James O’Brien, said the research doesn’t mean “every home close to bush will be lost”.