New South Wales bushfires: a day with the rural fire service – in pictures

Gary McQuade from the country fire association waits for his team's next task near the Norman Lindsay Gallery in Faulconbridge
Photograph: Andrew Quilty/Guardian Australia

Buena Vista Road, Winmalee
Photograph: Andrew Quilty/Guardian Australia

RFS volunteers work on a ridge in Faulconbridge
Photograph: Andrew Quilty/Guardian Australia

Burn-out ruins on Buena Vista Road, Winmalee
Photograph: Andrew Quilty/Guardian Australia

Geoff Booth, from the Faulconbridge RFS crew, on the radio in the backyard of a Faulconbridge home
Photograph: Andrew Quilty/Guardian Australia

A hand-painted sign thanking RFS volunteers in Faulconbridge
Photograph: Andrew Quilty/Guardian Australia

An ashen garage door in Winmalee
Photograph: Andrew Quilty/Guardian Australia

Faulconbridge resident, Tony Bles surveys the valley behind his property Photograph: Andrew Quilty/Guardian

A helicopter waterbombs a fire in Faulconbridge
Photograph: Andrew Quilty/Guardian Australia

Devastation on Buena Vista Road, Winmalee
Photograph: Andrew Quilty/Guardian Australia

Volunteers watch an Erickson Air-crane near the Norman Lindsay Gallery in Faulconbridge
Photograph: Andrew Quilty/Guardian Australia

A resident of Sunny Ridge Road, Peter Meehan, at the front door of the house he saved with the help of RFS volunteers
Photograph: Andrew Quilty/Guardian Australia

The burnt-out inside of Michelle Smith's shed on Sunny Ridge Road, Winmalee
Photograph: Andrew Quilty/Guardian Australia

Smoke blows through bushland at Faulconbridge as fires smoulder in the scrub below
Photograph: Andrew Quilty/Guardian Australia

Michelle Smith's shed on Sunny Ridge Road, Winmalee
Photograph: Andrew Quilty/Guardian Australia

Sam Tucker, from the Faulconbridge RFS crew, surveys bushland from the backyard of a Faulconbridge home
Photograph: Andrew Quilty/Guardian Australia

Geoff Booth, from the Faulconbridge RFS crew, looks down at smoke below
Photograph: Andrew Quilty/Guardian Australia