In his role in the State Emergency Services, he has seen and dealt with many over the years.

But he sees working for volunteer group BlazeAid during the bushfire recovery as "grassroots volunteering" and a chance to "get his hands dirty".

Mr Murphy is helping with the organising and establishing of a new BlazeAid camp in Kangaroo Valley.

The first of the organisation's satellite camps to be set up in the Shoalhaven after a major operation has been up and running in the Milton area for almost a month.

"I've always had an interest in disaster recovery and emergency services and while taking a bit of leave at the moment it was a chance to come out and do some grassroots volunteering," he said.

"I spent some time in Milton building and clearing fences, with Kangaroo Valley now open it was a bit closer to home, a bit smaller operation, I wanted to help out and am committing as much as I can each week.

"There is nothing wrong with the other larger organisations providing a different type of response, who need to be highly trained and lots of practices, procedures and infrastructure, BlazeAid is completely different.

"A lot of it is grey nomads, people with caravans, backpackers. People who are happy to come out and camp and work their bottoms off, all day, then come back and have a great meal."

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At Kangaroo Valley his expertise and background have been an advantage.

He has managed to guide some of the logistics and planning for "scaling up".

"We are currently fairly small on the volunteer side but I'm sure things will scale pretty well," he said.

"We've got some great volunteers coming in, some from other BlazeAid camps who move around, and a lot of locals helping as well.

"All have life experiences. I'm actually amazed at the amount of work the grey nomads do, I'm having trouble keeping up with them. I'm close to that stage but not quite there yet.

"Backpackers are also great workers. They like getting in and working as long as they can relax at the end of the day."

Mr Murphy is keen to get the corporate sector involved.

"A couple of times companies have come down for one or two days and bring quite a few people," he said.

"They [the staff] actually get a lot out of it.

"They get to interact with the people they wouldn't normally interact with.

"It's team building for them. They get to have a great experience out camping or staying somewhere else and helping others.

"I'm hoping we can fill some of the gaps in our rosters with companies that come in for three or four days. They come in and learn, and do, and by day three are doing really well and maybe next time we have a gap in our rosters they might come back again on the weekend and give some of our volunteers the whole weekend off.

"We'd encourage small groups to come in, maybe up to six people and once trained they can do an awful lot in a day."

He said with the scale of work in the Valley he expects crews to be based there for between three and six months.

"We'd like to get as much work done as possible before it gets too cold," he said.

"People often don't like to work too much when it's really cold.

"We have 50 properties seeking assistance but there are thousands of properties across the country being assisted by BlazeAid."

Mr Murphy said it's amazing to see the effect BlazeAid has.

"It's not just about the infrastructure we replace," he said.

"Every day BlazeAiders are given a briefing and one thing they are told is it's okay not to go straight into their work when they arrive at a property. It's okay to talk to the people who are on the property.

"I'm finding a lot of victims/survivors are working flat out, and not really knowing where to start.

"To have four or five people turn up and hear their story you can feel the emotion of what they've gone through, you get an understanding. For those of us who weren't there, it's enlightening and really beneficial for the property owners.

"We spend a fair bit of time talking to people - farmers are a bit of an isolated group sometimes.

"Having four or five city slickers or locals come in who aren't farmers and understand what they do I think is pretty important.

"We also get a better understanding on how hard it is on the land. You can't always insure fences, you can't just mitigate against disasters like you can in the city with insurances etc, it's just not feasible

"The money, the resources and the labor BlazeAid brings is pretty important to get those people started.

"Quite often getting these people started they can carry on."