Emergency services responded to 000 calls at about 4.15pm to attend the scene between the Racecourse Road exit and the Thurgoona Drive exit on the western side of the northbound lane between the Hume highway and the rail corridor.

NSW Rural Fire Service incident duty commander Shai Feuerherdt said six tankers were sent out: three from the Thurgoona brigade and three from the Lavington brigade.

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"We were there to assist Fire and Rescue, they already had a couple of trucks there that were inside the rail corridor, so we had to actually shut down the state rail for the time of the fire," he said.

"Crews that were on scene were reporting that the smoke wasn't impacting the Highway too much at the time, but I think it was more impacting the rail line.

"There was one train that had to pull up straight away, they had him stopped back south of the incident and they were due to get another train coming thorough in about an hour, but they had to make sure he wasn't coming in case it took longer to get on top of the fire."

The fire was under control and the scene safe by about 5.40pm.

Mr Feuerherdt said police also attended the emergency to control traffic on the Highway.

"They reduced the Hume Highway down to one lane while we were working from there, because it was quite dangerous, there was a lot of traffic going through," he said.

Mr Feuerherdt said the cause of the fire, which burned about 1.5 hectares, was still unknown.

"Police had their investigator out there this morning having a look at it, we're not sure, we're still working with police to try to come up with an answer," he said.

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