Ritchey Sealy will never forget seeing the lights of the "cavalry" coming around a blasted mountain on the night of January 1.
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The RFS Group South Officer had spent all day with a convoy of farmers fighting their way out of Belowra after the New Year's Eve firestorm.
"The big concern was that the cattle had no feed," he said.
"There was this eerie feeling, no daylight, no night, just this orange sky. Everything was silhouetted; trees coming down everywhere.
"It was decided, 'let's do this, let's get out of here'."
About a dozen people piled into five vehicles. Ahead lay more than 30km of still smouldering, steep, winding dirt road - blocked with countless fallen and burning trees.
"Keith Dance had his dozer, we had two tractors, a ute full of chain saws and really good chain saw operators," Ritchey said. Mr Dance dozered a bypass around a burned bridge: "We started cutting our way through; the sound of trees coming down was everywhere, it was a symphony of trees. The guys were just chainsawing and chainsawing."
Then came a morale booster on the radio: "I got the word Nerrigundah was coming for us. That egged us on. They had been told to stand down but said 'no way, we are going to get them out'."
Mate, we all just broke down in tears
- Ritchey Sealy
For hours, the two crews cut towards each other. If someone had sent a drone up on that long day, they would have seen young guys picking up trees and throwing them off the road.
"The two young guys on the chainsaws, they were expert; they just sharpened chainsaws on the run and were just cutting, cutting, cutting," Ritchey said. "It was getting into night. One of the ladies was on the side of a tractor with a torch. The tractor was pushing logs into the valley, and the young guy on the tractor, Ben, said, 'this is so dangerous, I don't think we can go any further'.
"Wayne, he had been cutting all day, and he could hardly chainsaw. All of a sudden, Nerrigundah's lights came around the corner. It was a steep drive down; there were two trees to cut and the guys said, 'let's do this'.
"Mate, we all just broke down in tears, it was just so emotional. There were man hugs, it was phenomenal."
The Nerrigundah crew reversed up the steep slope and the together the crews made it to the Nerrigundah fire shed.
