It has been a relentless summer for NSW RFS brigades this year.
In one 56-day stretch between October and December,Mr Yarnold had just four days off. If he wasn’t heading his team out of the Tinonee RFS shed,he was working on the electrical side of the fire effort in his day job for Essential Energy.
Mid-Coast District Officer Stuart Robb said Australia had yet to fully realise the psychological impact the fire season has potentially had on volunteers.
"Because they are actually from communities where homes are lost,they already know the people and have an affinity with those communities ... it takes a toll,but they are immensely resilient and stoic."
Mr Robb said a real positive out of the season was the sheer number of people considering joining the volunteer organisation,with expectations of a 100 per cent increase in new volunteers in the region.
On the Mid North Coast,the first fire began burning in the depths of winter,on July 18,and continues to burn underground today.
A total of 58 fires have since burnt more than 420,000 hectares of bush across the region,making up a third of the Mid Coast and Port Macquarie-Hastings Local Government Areas.
In Rainbow Flat,the local RFS crew have responded to about 80 call-outs since October 1,"a lot for a small brigade",firefighter Peter Wynd said.
The town of almost 700 lost 18 homes in the Hillville fire on November 8 and almost twice as many sheds,including that of the local RFS brigade.
"It does hurt a lot. The brigade has been going since 1963,so there was a lot of history in there … old photos,equipment,minute books,"captain Robert Derbyshire said.
While the old Rainbow Flat shed is still a pile of rubble in the yard of its old site,this has not stopped its crew from serving the community.
Instead they have spent the summer working out of the home of volunteers Barry and Teresa Price,whose car port has become the temporary home for the crew’s beloved red truck.
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"The truck has still responded to just about every call it's got. Until this week it would have been several a day,"said Mrs Price,adding that recent heavy rainfall had taken a weight off their shoulders,at least for now.
"We’ve gone from an empty[water] tank,to a tank that’s overflowing and I’ve got to go down and buy another tank,"Mr Price said this week.
Recent rain has brought signs of life back to charred,blackened forests across the region. Birds are returning to the trees and brown pastures have taken on the slightest lick of green.
It may not have been drought-breaking rain,but it sure feels good,Mr Wynd said.
"It’s like a line has been drawn,and we can start putting the garden back in,start growing veggies. It’s a psychological thing."