* Forecasters expect new "warmest day" record in Australia
* Australia hit by two separate climate driving events
* Thick smoke and intense heat trigger health warnings
* Many fires are uncontained in country's east
By Jonathan Barrett
SYDNEY, Dec 18 (Reuters) - An outback town near Australia's red-hot centre barely paused on Wednesday for a heat wave that is gripping the country, fuelling fires and prompting widespread health warnings as heat records get set to tumble.
Oodnadatta, a South Australian town of about 200 people located on an old Aboriginal trading route, is forecast to record peak temperatures of 47 degrees Celsius (116.6° Fahrenheit) on Wednesday, according to the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM), making it one of the hottest places on Earth.
"It's just another very hot day," said resident Hayley Nunn, who is the manager of the town's distinct pink roadhouse where tourists stop on their way to and from Australia's Simpson Desert.
"People say to me they love summer. If you love summer, come out and experience this because you will not love it," Nunn said in a phone interview.
The unrelenting heat in Oodnadatta, forecast to repeat every day for at least the next week, is expected to fall just shy of the 50.7-degree C (123.26 F) temperature recorded there in 1960, a long-standing national record.
But other heat records are tumbling in the first month of the Southern (NYSE:SO) Hemisphere summer.
Australia's warmest day on record occurred in January 2013, when the average maximum temperature across the country was 40 C (105.4 F), according to BOM data.
That mark is expected to be exceeded on Wednesday and then again on Thursday and Friday.
The hot weather is stretching across the continent and fuelling fires that have been ravaging Australia's east since late spring. authorities in the state of New South Wales (NSW) said on Wednesday there were 99 fires, half of which were not contained.
Fires have killed six people, destroyed more than 680 homes and burned nearly 3 million acres (1.2 million hectares) of bushland.
BATTLE ON TWO FRONTS
Australia is being hit with two separate climate-driving events off its west and southern coasts - a positive Indian Ocean Dipole and negative Southern Annulare Mode - that are reducing rainfall and increasing temperatures.
"They have combined together to create this situation of a particularly nasty heat wave event," said BOM meteorologist Sarah Scully.
The extreme conditions have been exacerbated by a warming climate, which is triggering large-scale protests in a nation that is committed to exploiting its vast coal reserves. combination of thick smoke settling over populated areas and intense heat has triggered numerous health warnings across the country, especially for the young and the old, and those with respiratory conditions.
In Oodnadatta, where the temperature is only expected to drop to around 30 C (86 F) overnight, locals are warning travellers to take plenty of water on their car trips in case they break down on the long stretches of isolated roads.
"Between most towns, it's 200 kilometres (124.3 miles)," said Nunn.
Nunn said Oodnadatta falls into a rhythm in the summer where people do jobs early in the morning and late in the afternoon, while sheltering from the heat in the middle of the day.
"I grew up here, I'm used to the heat. You cope but it's not fun."
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