I stand amazed and humbled by the dedication and sacrifice shown by all Australian and Overseas Volunteers in the face of the recent drought & fire emergencies.
In particular, I would like to thank our own NSW RFS volunteer Phil Clift, his story in his own words below.

“The first is at Batemans Bay – I’m on the left hose and NSW Fire & Rescue are on the right trying to save a house that was directly behind us. You can see bits of pink fire retardant on my gear after we got a small bombing from theDC10 tanker.
The second was taken late in the day and we were somewhere between Mittagong and Wombeyan Caves and the crew was having a rest. We had joined with other brigades to put in a 6km containment line on the southern flank of the Green Wattle Creek fire to protect Mittagong.
The following clip is from the Balmoral fire which was also part of the Green Wattle Creek fire. I was there but I’m not in the clip but you get the idea of what we were facing.
There was a news camera man near us and at the start of the clip you can see our truck arriving at the property and the fire was very close and moving fast from right to left.
At 0:21 you can see the trees exploding and crowning – they were very big trees and we got very hot very fast.
At 0:22 in the foreground you can just make out a little structure that was used by goats on the property. I was defending them in their paddock out of camera- they made it through.
At 0:27 the firefighter who bending over is our Officer in Charge and he’s coughing his lungs up & briefly again at 0:34. The other fire fighter is Nate and I am further around to the left out of shot with the goats”.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-12-19/sydney-nsw-heatwave-weather-smoke-bushfires/11810414
Cheers Phillip.