As well as making sure he and his family were as safe as possible as several bushfires approached Wyndham and surrounds, he also documented the story of how his friends and neighbours came together in a desperate time of need.

The Myrtle Mountain Road Fire was the first to arrive on Wyndham's doorstep, on December 30, 2019.

Largely unheralded in the bigger scheme of bushfire season, the blaze was quickly and successfully contained by the Wyndham RFS Brigade and crews from around the region.

The Big Jack Mountain Fire was the last, hitting emergency level on January 23 and again on February 1 when it finally came. It swept over Mount Darragh and up to New Buildings Road, and veered into Devils Hole, where I live.

It spotted into the northeastern edges of the valley in which Wyndham Village lies but progressed no further. The township and nearby properties were spared, somehow, though we were by now used to the apparently fickle nature of fire, its unpredictability almost supernatural. Mother Nature and karma were certainly talked about much more than usual.

Mid-January, a pamphlet titled "Living with a Campaign Fire" appeared in the Wyndham General Store; a campaign fire is defined as "a fire of a size and/or complexity that requires substantial firefighting resources, and possibly several days or weeks to suppress".

An apt descriptor; Wyndham was under siege. Mother Nature had taken advantage of not enough bushfire preparation and drought to ravage the region.

In the aftermath, up to and including the flooding, I had a chance to put together a photographic essay relating what I'd seen and experienced. It was a challenge in many ways, not least of which was trying to remember what the hell had happened.

The story eventually surfaced through the process of reviewing, processing and selecting photographs, interviewing people and establishing the details of the fires with the help of the RFS.

The result relates the experience of a few residents of Wyndham and Devils Hole, as they repeatedly evacuated to Mount Darragh Friesians, a horse breeding property about 1km west of Wyndham village. The property owners, Sue Schepisi and Nick Crundall, had opened it up as a shelter for friends and neighbours, particularly those with horses.

My parents and I evacuated there for the first Border Fire threat. My parents subsequently evacuated to Merimbula during subsequent threats while I remained at Mount Darragh Friesians to document until whatever conclusion manifested.

Unlike any other story I've photographed, I had as much at stake as the people I photographed. I never feared for my life, but there was fear. And I worried most about my parents and the possibility they would lose the home they worked hard their whole lives for.

It was pure luck that the Tarraganda RFS Brigade was able to get into Devils Hole and protect their property when it counted. It is still difficult to reconcile with this luck, knowing so many people have lost much more.

Peter and Ainsley White, owners/operators of the Wyndham General Store and evacuees to Mount Darragh Friesians, lost their shed at home. It contained parts Peter was planning to use in the restoration of his HQ and HJ Holdens. It was a blessing the cars themselves were safely tucked away at Mount Darragh Friesians.

Across the region, homes, outbuildings, fences, water tanks, firewood, tools, machinery and livestock were destroyed. An enormous amount of landscape was left a smouldering wasteland.

Nobody died in this part of the shire, but we think of those who did during what's being dubbed "Black Summer".

The intensity of this bushfire season has quickly been reduced to a background blur in contrast to the sharp, global focus on the coronavirus.

Yet, the COVID-19 pandemic doesn't nullify the physical, mental and financial suffering that so many people have experienced and will continue to experience - for who knows how long.

How much will COVID-19 exacerbate their predicaments, or detract from preparations - federal, state, local and individual - for the next bushfire season?

A sobering thought is that almost half of the Bega Valley Shire didn't burn during the 2019/2020 bushfire season. There is plenty of fuel out there.

A trip to the Wolumla Peak lookout, for example, reveals the large swathe of dense forest still lies between Chalk Hills and Pambula. All it would take is a hot, dry, windy summer day that seems a certainty nowadays.

If any comfort can be taken in thinking about the next bushfire season, it is in knowing that communities, neighbours, friends and strangers will come together again. I don't think it would surprise many in this part of the world if they did.