Despite the moon boot encasing her left foot, Jenny Wholohan is adamant she won't be letting the threat from a nearby bushfire chase her from her home.
"If I need to, I will be out there with a crutch in one hand and a hose in the other," she says.
Ms Wholohan, who uses a knee walker to get around as she recovers from a foot reconstruction, looks out from the balcony of her smoke-shrouded house towards where fire crews from Western Australia and Tasmania are helping local firefighters build and deepen lines to contain the Calabash blaze burning about 10 kilometres south-east of Michelago.
"Having gone through losing a house before, we will do whatever we can to save this one," she says.
She and her husband Allan Lehepuu, who is a member of the local Rural Fire Service brigade, were away when fire roared through tiny bushland settlement of Tinderry in 2009, destroying three homes including their own.
It was a searing experience for the couple, and one they are determined not to repeat.
"Our experience is that most houses will burn if there is no one around," Ms Wholohan says.
READ MORE:
- Cooler conditions ahead for Clear Range, Calabash fires
- 'My brain went completely numb': Couple returns to destroyed home
- Homes lost near Bredbo as storms pose new threat
They consider themselves well prepared. They have cleared the ground for 100 metres around their property, stockpiled 55,000 litres of water and have hoses and pumps laid out and ready to go.
But there is no getting away from the anxiety of living for weeks under constant bushfire threat.
From their home the couple have watched the Good Good fire consume more than 42,000 hectares of bushland to the south-east while to the west the Orroral and Clear Range fires have marched steadily in their direction, sending out spot fires that on the weekend developed into the Calabash blaze which has encroached to within a kilometre of where they live.
Ms Wholohan admits it has been very trying.
"I am so sleep deprived," she says. "I have had days where I have been waking up thinking, 'Are we going to have [our home] tonight?'."
The arrival of interstate fire crews has boosted the spirits of the residents of the tight-knit community, who have busied themselves providing meals, drinks and other supplies for the visitors, all the while keeping one eye on the firefront and another on the weather forecast.
This week's cooler temperatures and calmer conditions, combined with predictions of showers developing on Friday and persisting through to at least next Tuesday, have raised hopes that the worst of the fire threat may be passing.
The Bureau of Meteorology has forecast a 60 per cent chance of showers on Friday, up to 20 millimetres of rain on Saturday, up to 25 millimetres on Sunday and up to 20 millimetres on Monday.
But caution tinges the outlook of locals.
Ms Wholohan says that "for 10 days they were forecasting decent rain, but you could count the drops" from the showers that were meant to accompany last Sunday's cool change.
"This is what the Australian bush does," she shrugs.
Across the other side of the Monaro Highway, residents along Bumbalong Road are still counting the cost of last weekend's fire catastrophe.
Fire-blackened paddocks abut the Murrumbidgee River while smoldering logs, piles of charred and twisted metal and burnt-out cars mark the course of the intense blaze.
The RFS has confirmed that 12 homes have been destroyed in the Snowy Monaro area since Saturday, including Bumbalong and Colinton.
Even those whose homes escaped the fire unscathed cannot relax.
On Wednesday afternoon the status of the Clear Range fire was raised to 'watch and act' as strengthening north easterly winds fanned embers and spot fires, driving the firefront toward Bredbo and Shannons Flat Road.
Overhead, helicopters laden with firebuckets continued to do relay runs to help control the Orroral Valley blaze, which has burnt through more than 80,200 hectares.
The ACT Emergency Services Agency said that no properties were under threat from the Orroral fire as of late Wednesday and specialised teams were working to enable public access to Tharwa Village "as soon as possible".
Further south, crews were working to protect Westermans Hut in the south of Namadgi National Park.
.png?w=600)
