While Mr McKinnon remains with the RFS, he has left his District Officer role based at Nowra, and is now working with the Planning Environmental Services (PES), based in the Bay.

The organisation has three such offices across the state - the two others are based at Coffs Harbour and Glendenning in Sydney.

However, he won't be lost to the Shoalhaven, as he will still be involved locally as a RFS chainsaw training instructor.

Steve originally took up a position in Shoalhaven City Council's Fire Control in 1996, before a legislation change saw the staff transfer to the NSW Rural Fire Service in 2001.

But he has been a volunteer member of the Tomerong Brigade since the early 1980s, simply saying "growing up in Tomerong it was just the done thing".

Steve will be working as a Development Assessment and Planning Coordinator.

"We assess bushfire reports provided in development applications for DAs for housing, sheds and the like that councils refer to RFS which they believe don't comply with bushfire protection," he said.

"We also provide assessment for Bushfire Safety Authorities for consent approval - required from the RFS for subdivisions or special fire protection purpose developments like schools, hospitals or nursing homes."

The Batemans Bay office covers a huge area from Wollongong across to the South Australian border and south to the Victorian border.

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"It is a huge area," he admitted, "but we don't get a great deal of referrals from the western councils.

"The majority come from the Wollongong, Kiama, Shellharbour, Shoalhaven, Eurobodalla, Bega and Queanbeyan-Palerang council areas."

Steve is part of a team of five made up of three officers and two supervisors who all assess such applications.

"I was looking for some new challenges and this is a change," he said.

"Although, it's not that different from what I was doing previously in a District Development Control Officer position which was just for council advice and not assessment for Bushfire Safety Authorities.

"I've been involved in fire incident and hazard reduction planning for the past 26 years, which is about planning and preparation and putting things in place, if the day comes and they are needed, the community is better prepared.

"This is exciting but still doing things for our community, which is what all roles in the RFS are about - helping the community to be more resilient."

Over his 26 years in the Shoalhaven he has undertaken a number of different roles including fire hazard assistant, fire hazard officer, bushfire risk management officer to district development control officer, where the service was involved in development assessment and in 2002 when applications were referred regarding bushfire protection measures.

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From the late 1990s he worked in community safety, planning and mitigation officer roles, primarily working in the community safety or community risk functional areas. He spent two to three years in RFS State Mitigation when it was established by the RFS and was the supervisor of mitigation crews from Nowra to Bega and all the way out to Wagga before transferring back into a District Officer role at Nowra.

There he again worked in the community risk/safety function areas - dealing with bushfire hazard complaints, fire permits, hazard reduction planning and fire trail management issues, which meant working with various other services such as National Parks and Wildlife Service, State Forests, Crown Land, council, Defence lands and private agencies.

"We were also responsible for issuing bushfire Hazard Reduction Certificates, the streamlined environmental approval for essential hazard reduction works," he said.

He also assisted the executive officer of the Shoalhaven Bushfire Management Committee, which includes all fire and land management agencies such as NPWS, Forest Corporation, Crown Lands, Defence, NSW Water Council, local Aboriginal Land Council representatives, Nature Conservation, Council and NSW Farmers Federation.

That group oversees three specific plans.

The Operations Coordination Plan, which sets out how fire agencies combine to work together and combat fires which are often multi-tenured.

The Bushfire Risk Management Plan, which looks over the overall risk including some specific assets across the Shoalhaven LGA - it identifies a range of treatments to address risk, from hazard reduction, both mechanical or burning, through to community education type treatments, including community meetings and preparation of Community Protection Plans and identifying Neighbourhood Safer Places.

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The group also oversees the preparation of the Fire Access and Fire Trail Plan.

Mr McKinnon said he was "fortunate" in his early career to work alongside then Fire Control Officer Brian Parry.

"It was certainly good for my development working with him. I learnt a lot."

Over the decades the Shoalhaven has witnessed many big fires - "more than my lifetime," he says.

His first significant fire event in an incident management team was in 2001-02 in the Black Christmas Fires.

"That was a significant event and thinking back I was fortunate to have worked with Brian and other people like Richard Woods and Mal Newing.

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"I think I came of age out of that event."

That was followed by the Touga and Cattlemans fires in 2002 and also the Agars Lane fire that threatened Shoalhaven Heads.

"These were all around the same time and less than 12 months after the Black Christmas Bushfire," he said.

"And a few months later a number of volunteers and staff from the Shoalhaven were also part of the Canberra fires in 2003."

Steve was part of the incident management team.

But, by far, the biggest fire he has experienced was the 2019-20 Black Summer Fires.

"That was massive...the largest area burnt in a season on record for the Shoalhaven with 500,000 hectares burnt," he said.

"To put it into perspective, people always spoke about the Chatsbury Bungonia Fire in 1965 which started out near Goulburn and ended up in the Shoalhaven and burnt out 250,000 hectares.

"That showed large areas being burnt in fires locally wasn't a new thing. But 2019-20 was huge and was very taxing on everybody involved."

He also thanked another significant mentor, Amanda Moylan, who was the first Bushfire Risk Management Officer at Shoalhaven Fire Control in the late 1990s.

"Although I don't have formal development planning qualifications, I learnt a lot working with Amanda over many years in that and various other roles."

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