The sights and sounds of Black Summer are etched indelibly in the memories of many.
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Sean Bremner and David Oddy both had a unique perspective on the fires.
Mr Bremner is an air attack supervisor for the RFS, while Mr Oddy is captain of the West Nowra RFS. He is also part of the air attack team with Mr Bremner.
Fire fighters are driven by the desire to protect the community, and Mr Oddy said he was most upset when he saw people put themselves at risk.
"I saw people literally drive off the road to get around a road block to go south on holiday," he said.
"What is going on in these people's minds that their holiday is more important than their children's lives in the back of the car?"
Mr Bremner said at times firefighters felt helpless.
"The day I thought I would watch people die was when people were leaving Sussex under police escort," he said.
"The wind changed and two fingers of fire came out of Manyana towards the highway. The traffic couldn't move, and we had one chance to stop the fire.
"We lost visibility because of the smoke. We banked in the air and threw 45 tonnes of water at the side of the highway - I thought we were going to hit cars with it.
"Not a car got burnt."
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Decades of experience mean Mr Bremner and Mr Oddy know what they need to do to manage their mental health, even in the face of such an overwhelming emergency.
They said that knowledge, combined with the support of their team, helped them through the bushfire season.
"Every day you would finish exhausted, but the next day you would bounce back," Mr Bremner said.
"We have good people, you know each other, you have each other's backs.
"I'm task focussed, and even on the days I struggled I was able to focus on the job I had to do.
"When I get home, before I even eat, I'll go for a walk and think about the day, do a debrief with myself, then let it go."
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Mr Oddy's strategy for managing his mental health was slightly different.
"After 30 years as a military aviator, I put it away," he said.
"Good or bad, I'll come home, have a night-time beer and put it away, and that's the way I deal with it. The next day I'm not thinking about it. But that doesn't happen overnight, that takes time to develop."
Both men said they had seen the toll the summer bushfire season took on mental health across the Shoalhaven.
They urged anyone affected to find out what mental health strategies work best for them, and to seek support.
"Everybody reacts to things in different ways," Mr Oddy said.
"When people are confronted with something, you see their real character and afterwards you see the effect it had on that character.
"So you have to give people the opportunity, the space and the right to talk about what happened."
Incident controller for the Currowan fire, Mark Williams, agreed. He said everyone in the community has a part to play in supporting one another.
"We've gotten good at saying 'are you ok?' and people are becoming more comfortable answering that question honestly - now we need to work on what we do if the answer is 'no'," he said.
"It's respectful that we mark the anniversary, but it's going to open up a lot of wounds. I hope we can continue to rebuild without pulling the scab off that wound every five minutes.
"We have to heal, but we also have to learn."
Click here for more stories of recovery and renewal.
