Though her extended family has lost two properties in the fires around Wondalga and Adelong, Tammy McMahon is grateful.
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Ms McMahon and her two children, aged 13 and 12, received the news late on Saturday night that her brother-in-law and parents-in-law had both lost their properties.
Additionally, she was told the fire came within five kilometres of destroying her own home.
But, she says, she would have gladly lost her home to ensure the safety of her husband, David, who stayed back to fight the fires and went missing for four hours during on Saturday afternoon.
"When we did make contact with him again, we found out [his team of firefighters] were stuck without a safe way out of the fire," Ms McMahon said.
The family have been joined by long-term friends and family members as evacuees at a caravan park in Wagga. Numbering up to 13 women and children, each with their partners and adult sons away fighting the fires.
They had been tracking their loved ones' whereabouts via the Life360 app when Ms McMahon's husband disappeared on Saturday.
"Yesterday, in particular, was horrific, sickening, just devastating," Ms McMahon said on Sunday.
"To find out that my in-laws' and my brother-in-law's house has gone down, how can one family go through so much?
"My husband has been a firefighter for 20-plus years, he said he's never witnessed anything like this. It's unbelievable, he said just like a warzone out there. Trees are down, power lines are down, there's dead stock everywhere."
For Ms McMahon, her family and her close friends, the ordeal had started long before the fires threatened their small communities.
"Every year we have a family holiday at Blowering Dam, but we were evacuated from there at about 2am on New Year's Eve," Ms McMahon recalls.
The family retreated to Adelong to stay with long-term friend Jessica Weaver, her partner and their three children. But on Friday, they too were evacuated.
"When we left the dam, we weren't concerned. We thought they'd get to the bottom of it before it really threatened anything," Ms Weaver said.
"But then the days went on and the fire hadn't stopped, so we realised it was much worse."
With her partner Leon Murdoch staying back to fight the fires, Ms Weaver has been told that on Saturday the fire also came within a few kilometres of destroying her family's home.
But even with the narrow escape from a loss this time, both Ms Weaver and Ms McMahon said they are not ready to relax their concern.
"We hear that they've contained this and they've contained that, but we don't get excited until it's fully put out and for that, we're just waiting and seeing," Ms Weaver said.
But in the midst of the tragedy and the uncertainty, Ms McMahon has still found cause to smile.
"We're not thinking too far ahead from just this moment, it's too hard to. But I absolutely would not have made it through this without Jess and everyone here with me," she said.