A large fire swallowed more than 3300 hectares, burning along the tablelands near Tarago on Tuesday afternoon, as locals watched in horror from Mt Fairy, gathered to defend properties or in the case of one man, drove towards the smoke to find his dog.
Mark Patterson, a contractor, stood with his partner Felicity, their kids and friend Christa Sadler and her mother Pat Sadler, as the fire burned the hills less than a kilometre from their property.
He'd pulled his employees off work to help defend homes along the north side of Mt Fairy Rd, including his.
"I know most of these people," Mr Patterson said, looking into the smoke. "This is a bit serious."
Related Content
Ms Patterson was nervous too, a similar fire had badly burned her father when she was a teenager and watching the smoke always brought back the memory.
Mark then got in his truck, and joked with family friend Ms Sadler about getting a beer, before driving towards his home.
Ms Sadler, stood at the driveway to her property just on a crest at Mt Fairy Road, overlooking the fire just to the north, and said it was the luckiest strip of land in the area as a fire two years ago south of the property had just missed.
"God's country, it must be," Ms Patterson said.
As they watched, the fire crept closer to a line of pines just near Ms Patterson's home before it went up and the group gasped.
Felicity packed the kids, Molly and Logan, into their Ford while Ms Sadler turned to get into her car saying she had to go let the five horses out, she couldn't do anything else for them at this point.
Further down Mt Fairy Rd, farm hands Luke and Hayley Gregory said it must have only taken ten minutes between spotting the fire and it reaching the farm they worked at, Merigan Station, which the farm manager said was destroyed in under an hour.
"Really scary stuff," Mr Gregory said, with Ms Gregory adding the livestock were gone too, "We've lost our horses."
Station manager Dougal McDowell said they evacuated quickly after spotting the fire, opening the gates for the animals, including sheep and cattle.
"It was a matter of saving ourselves," Mr McDowell said, adding the station's owner was travelling to the property from Sydney.
Planes and helicopters flew low overheard, water bombing the fire as it moved further east.
Along the tracks running parallel to Mt Fairy Rd, Brad Lopaten, a public servant, watched nervously as the fire moved towards the tracks and headed towards the property he'd owned for 14 years.
He said he'd moved from nearby Wamboin the day of the 2003 Canberra bushfire, with Wednesday marking fourteen years since the tragedy, while a fire had come close to taking his home three years ago.
"This was as close as it got," Mr Lopaten said. Shortly after, the fire moved across the tracks and Mr Lopaten said he'd stay until he knew what happened to his property.
His friend, Tony Beileiter, an off duty fire fighting volunteer, and his border collie helped Mr Lopaten bring his sheep as the pair watched from the tracks under the powerlines.
As they stood there, a man drove up and ran from his truck, asking if either of them had seen any firefighters heading north towards his property.
Mr Beileiter said one had gone by, but the man appeared nervous and said he'd left his dog chained up in the yard. Before anyone said anything else, he turned and ran back to his ute, speeding towards the smoke; minutes later NSW Fire came up the road from his direction and said people were to clear the area.
The landscape was black as fire trucks moved along it and the smoke was visible from as far as Queanbeyan.
A total fire ban had been declared from midnight on Wednesday, with a thunderstorm and fierce winds expected overnight.