The Nowra Hill residents who stayed behind faced both a mental and physical battle to save their property, animals and lives.

Mark Reminis described the horror when the southerly hit on Tuesday afternoon.

"The morning was perfect," Mr Reminis said.

"It went from the clearest blue sky we have had in six weeks to the worst."

Mark's neighbour Gail Rooney said it was "Armageddon" out there.

"[It was] Normal in the morning then it all turned to... horror in the afternoon," Ms Rooney said.

"It was really scary."

Gail had faced bushfires before, back in 2002, but this time it seemed different.

The psychological battle was also a real one, but not one they had a lot of time to think about.

"We just did it," Ms Rooney said.

"It's not something you think overly much about, I guess," resident Jeremy English said.

"Be as safe as you can while being as prepared as you can in the moment.

"What a New Years Eve to remember."

On Wednesday dozens of Nowra Hill residents north of HMAS Albatross were trying to get back to their property.

As cars were blocked at Flinders Road for a good part of the day, some residents had parked their car at the roadblock to walk on foot to their property.

Residents Greg and Lucy Sweet had decided to walk 2km back to their home, although they weren't planning to say for long.

"We had to duck home to get a few things," Lucy said.

"We were evacuated yesterday in quite a hurry so we obviously just left," Greg said.

"I didn't even have shoes on, I had gumboots on so I've been wearing gumboots for the last day pretty much.

Greg said around 3:30pm on Tuesday night the situation turned for the worse.

"It was very scary, it came through very dark and it certainly looked like Armageddon that's for sure."

Another Nowra Hill resident along Albatross Road Jane Mills described a terrifying scene as she defended her property.

Embers were raining down on her home and trees were exploding as bush metres away was blackened.

It was the second time in 12 years her place had been threatened by fire.

She had decided to say to protect her six horses and they were let free from the paddock by firefighters during the blaze.

Most of the horses had returned to the paddock although one of them was stubborn, refusing to go inside and even blocked the path of firefighters trying to get out.