Narrow escape for woman as bushfire rips through rail museum in the Hunter Valley

Richmond Vale Railway Museum volunteers Graeme Glanville and Peter Gunnell work to save the museum's rare vintage coal mine underground skips. Photo / AAP

A woman has escaped with her life, trapped inside a building as a bushfire ripped through an historic rail museum in the New South Wales Hunter Valley.

Volunteers at the Richmond Vale Train Museum near Cessnock are counting their blessings after the blaze reduced several irreplaceable exhibits to ashes but spared the life of their colleague.

"Our secretary was here on site, she was actually in the museum building as the fire came through. Basically it passed both sides of her but she is alright, she survived," museum chairman Peter Meddows said.

"She said she didn't think about it at the time, that it bothers her now more than it did then."

Caught in the path of the ferocious bushfire, the Australian museum lost 2km of railway line as well as a number of restored historical trains and a coal hopper from 1880. The final damage bill is expected to hit the A$1 million mark.

The Richmond Vale bushfire that took off yesterday during an unseasonably hot day burnt more than 870ha, the Rural Fire Service said today.

"It's heartbreaking, you've got a programme and you're working through it and you're achieving your goals, it's 38 years of work and we are slowly getting there and then you get this setback," Meddows said. "We are all pretty dejected but we're determined to keep going."

In Queensland, fire bans have been placed on all islands in Moreton Bay due to bushfire concerns as the September school holidays loom.

Southeast Queensland is bracing itself for one of its worst bushfire seasons, with gusty winds and dry conditions increasing the risk today to severe.

A total fire ban for the southern part of the state is in place until midnight but Queensland Fire and Emergency Services have since issued another one for the islands. It will be in force from midnight on Friday until October 2.

Queensland state school holidays start on September 16.

- AAP