Thousands of people forced to flee the Southern Highlands on Saturday night as a blazing inferno bore down on their homes are expected to be allowed to return to the fire-ravaged neighbourhoods on Monday.
Many Wingello and Bundanoon residents urgently evacuated to neighbouring suburbs as the fire intensified late Saturday evening have spent a day and two nights frantically awaiting news on whether their homes survived the blaze.
Desperate homeowners turned to social media for answers, with dozens posting on local Facebook pages asking those who stayed behind defending homes to update them on property losses in certain streets.
"Any news, good or bad, would be appreciated," one resident wrote on the Wingello Facebook page.
While some people anticipated good news, others believed they haven't been so lucky.
"I'm 110 per cent sure my house in gone in Camden Street," one resident said, revealing she'd only moved into the home two weeks earlier.
"Devastated! You have such a beautiful community, I was looking forward to being part of it."
It appears firefighting authorities were caught off-guard by the destructive blaze, which began as a spot fire after the Currowan fire on the South Coast jumped the Shoalhaven River on Saturday morning and spread to the outskirts on Kangaroo Valley on the back of strong southerly winds.
About 8pm, the Southern Highlands RFS team issued an update on social media saying they didn't expect the Currowan fire would reach residential areas in the Highlands that night, however fire broke out south of Bundanoon less than two hours later and spread rapidly, forcing the RFS to recall crews en masse.
The owners of the Wingello Village Store documented their night via their Facebook page, saying embers were falling "thick and fast" and there were "houses burning everywhere". The family said they left the village that night "fully expect[ing] to return to ashes" but were overjoyed on Sunday morning to learn the shop had survived.
Meanwhile, firefighters took advantage of cooler weather conditions on Sunday to deal with flare-ups and extinguish hotspots.
An Illawarra strike team, consisting of crews from Austinmer, Helensburgh, Jamberoo, Dapto and Oak Flats brigades, spent the day dousing the smouldering remains of a blaze that scorched a rural property and razed a small home at Wingello.
The Illawarra sent four strike teams to the Currowan fire on Saturday morning and a further team to the Southern Highlands on Saturday night.
