UPDATE 9.25pm
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The fire is now burning in Kangaroo Valley. If you are in the area of Kangaroo Valley, seek shelter as the fire approaches.
The strong southerly winds, which reached up to 100km/h in Nowra at 8.30pm, have pushed the fire quickly across the Kangaroo River.
This has surpassed the predictions published by the Rural Fire Service yesterday.
Follow our live blog for the latest here.
Earlier:
The Shoalhaven emergency control room has issued a blanket warning for residents in the region between Nowra and Kioloa.
"A global warning has been issued for all areas from east and west of the Princes Highway between Nowra and Kioloa," the warning, sent via Shoalhaven council's media team at 4pm said.
"In addition another warning has been issued for Nowra to Berry, west of the Highway only, including Kangaroo Valley."
According to Currowan Fire incident controller Mark Williams, the northern Shoalhaven faces a long and difficult night.
"At the moment there are emergency alerts across the Shoalhaven. The emergency alert for the northern flank of the fire extends through to Berry and all points to the west. The advice is to shelter in place.
"To the south we have an emergency alert for all points between Nowra and Kioloa. Anyone impacted by fire should shelter in place.
"There is fire activity in numerous places including Bendalong, Basin View, Lake Tabourie and even further south.
"At 8pm, we will see a southerly change with winds up to 65 km/h which will significantly drive the northern flank of the fire in a northerly direction."
Likewise, Shoalhaven RFS district officer Brad Collins said there was "reasonable amount of fire activity on the northern side of the Shoalhaven River".
"It is burning into the back of villages in and around Bundanon," he said. "We are still expecting a southerly change to come through tonight and that will continue to push the fire north.
"Areas in and around Tapitallee and further north of the river need to monitor the situation.
"Down in the south we have significant fire activity in and around Bendelong Road. The fire is currently pushing towards the village of Bendalong."
"We have crews set up there for property protection. They will try to protect as many structures as they can."
Emergency alerts have gone out out.
"We need to remind people, and get the message out, that it is too late to leave. People need to stay where they are," Mr Collins said. "We have been issuing warnings to people for a number of days now and they needed to enact their bushfire survival plan and leave early.
"It is too late to leave for everyone in the Shoalhaven."
Residents stay to defend homes as fire crosses Shoalhaven River
Residents have stayed to defend their homes in Tapitallee as a plume of smoke billows overhead after the Currowan fire jumped the Shoalhaven River on Saturday.
Stunning scenes of black, grey and red smoke were created as the Rural Fire Service announced there a fire-generated thunderstorm was created.
The fire jumped the river near Burrier and has burnt Illaroo.
Tapittallee resident David Ryan said he was "feeling a bit nervous" as the fire was moving quickly from Bugong towards Browns Mountain Road.
"My mum and son are packing up and heading out," he said.
"My brother and I will stay for as long as we can because there is a way out on the road.
"We have sprinklers and fire pump, we will just have to wait and see."
Mr Ryan said they were just going to put out spot fires but they would go when it got too close.
The decided to stick around and defend because "it is our home, it is our farm."
"We still feel sort of safe. We have been through this before. We just have to wait and see."
Bill McPaul and his neighbours were watching the fire activity closely from their Browns Mountain Road properties.
"We wet the buildings and immediate vicinity down," he said. "We will come back out in half an hour to do it again.
"If the worst happens, we will get in our makeshift bunker under the house. If we get told to leave, we will leave."
Mr McPaul said he was feeling anxious and on edge.
"It is different when you look at the smoke," he said.
"You can make all the plans you like but when you see it bearing down it is different.
"At least we're have a lot of open field between the ridge and us so we can stop any ember attacks.
"We will try to stop the embers then we will seek cover.
"The way I see it is, there are heaps and heaps of volunteers out there doing an enormous amount of work but if we should do the work we can, as long as we know when to call it quits.
"Hopefully that will save volunteers coming up here."
Mr McPaul said he had been watching the fire activity closely to see if it jumped the Shoalhaven River.