The smoke has lifted and exhaustion has set in.
Still without water or heating, some bushfire survivors are struggling through a bitter winter.
When Ronnie Eagles explains what she's been using for a toilet for the past six months, she puts on a brave face.
"I did dig the old-fashioned toilet," she said.
The pit toilet sits near the borrowed caravan, where she and husband Trevor are spending the winter.
"I can put a tree in it afterwards and close it on in, and I'll have a good tree then," she joked.
With no running water, a plastic grain drum serves as their wash basin.
Every few days they drive 25 kilometres into the town of Cobargo to have a proper shower at the public bathrooms.
The cost of petrol makes more frequent trips difficult.
The couple's home on the New South Wales South Coast was one of thousands destroyed when fires raged over the summer in one of the worst disasters in Australia's history.
As the world has become fixated on the global pandemic, people like Ronnie and Trevor have been quietly struggling to get through each day.
"If it wasn't for mates, or people coming down we'd have nothing," Trevor said.
When the Eagles purchased the property six years ago with Trevor's superannuation, they hoped the profits from the farm would see them through retirement.
It's all been wiped out.
They own a house near Sydney but need to stay on the farm to look after the animals that survived the fire.
Like many locals without insurance, they are faced with the prospect of relying on grants, donations and help from the community to rebuild.
The mudbrick house Stefan Talmatzky built by hand still lies in ruins.
The homeopath moved from Germany to Australia 40 years ago and after semi-retiring became reclusive.
Much of what he lost was irreplaceable, like his prized collection of 9,000 books and his grandparents' floor lamp, which survived World War II.
"I just forgot things in there and just took off, not wanting to be sizzled, barbecued," he said.
"I had a whole library, probably the biggest homeopathic library in this country.
"German, French, English, bit of Russian, and other literature."
Beside the crumpled remains of his home, Stefan has two caravans and a converted shipping container.
His friends have been helping him build a roof between the three to catch rainwater, allowing Stefan to stay on his off-grid property.
From inside the container's thin walls, the outlook seems bleak, but the disaster has forced Stefan to ask for help.
He no longer wants to be as isolated as he once was.
"It's amazing to see what friends you have, what good mates," he said.
"I'm not as reclused anymore, and don't want to be."
Almost one in three of Cobargo's shops were burned down.
Locals were constantly reminded of the fire each time they came to town.
The asbestos-riddled debris wasn't cleared until June.
Federal and state government funded clean-up contractors have swarmed the main street in recent months.
Locals are frustrated this clean-up has taken so long.
It's a huge task — in the Bega Valley Shire alone there are more than 2,000 burnt buildings to remove, containing an enormous 32,000 tonnes of asbestos-contaminated material.
The Cobargo showground is home to the town's bushfire relief centre, where locals come for supplies and to get help navigating the maze of bureaucracy.
Since the first week of January, the centre's volunteer coordinators Chris Walters and Danielle Murphy have been working almost every day.
"A lot of people at the beginning, [were] not being forthcoming with asking for help," Danielle said.
"But we find now that they're actually coming through and saying, 'actually I'm not OK. I do need a bit of help'."
The showground was the site of one of the most politically charged moments of the summer.
Two days after the New Year's Eve fire violently ripped through the town, Prime Minister Scott Morrison came to see the devastation.
Danielle vented her frustration directly at the Prime Minister, asking him why there wasn't more funding and support for her small rural community to defend itself.
"How about some money for our forgotten corner of New South Wales, Mr Prime Minister?" she yelled at him.
Other locals joined in criticising the Prime Minister. He and his entourage quickly left the showground.
Loading..."To see somebody arrive back in the country, and then all of a sudden just come to one of the most devastated areas, bring nothing with them … I snapped," Danielle said.
"I hadn't slept. I'd fought fires, I still had ash all through my hair, bits of melted plastic … I was enraged. As you can probably see from the footage."
Her actions angered some in the community who felt the Prime Minister shouldn't have been treated that way.
Six months on, she feels some regret.
"I love the people of Cobargo. A lot of my motivation for working so hard for people still is to show people that it was never my intention to bring bad publicity for Cobargo and it was never a preconceived act of what I did that day," she said.
A common feeling in Cobargo is that the response from big charities, government and politicians hasn't been good enough.
Local publican Dave Allen has watched as politicians from all sides have come through his town to see the devastation firsthand.
"They've seen it and just haven't responded …. the scale of this is huge and the response to that has got to be huge as well and I just don't think it has been," he said.
In the tiny village of Quaama, 15 kilometres south of Cobargo, reminders of the deadly fires are still on display.
Inside the town's bushfire relief centre is a wall of post-it notes from locals that appeared in the days after the fires, to let others know they were safe.
"The word 'recovery' — we're nowhere near that yet. We're still cleaning up and just repairing the damage," relief centre coordinator Veronica Abbott said.
She's deeply worried about the community's mental health.
"We had a suicide of a person who is in the broader community who was fire affected," she said.
"For a lot of people the bad time quite possibly hasn't hit yet. We haven't really had time to sit and even think about what's actually happened."
The devastation extends for hundreds of kilometres around Cobargo.
For years cattle and dairy farmers here have weathered floods and droughts.
These fires destroyed generations of history.
Jade Corby is a fourth-generation farmer in Wandella, 20 minutes' drive north of Cobargo.
He hoped his three-year-old son, Mack, would grow up in the house Jade bought late last year. It had once been owned by his great-grandmother.
The New Year's Eve fire destroyed it and his precious collection of classic cars.
Five other members of his family also lost their homes that night.
It will take him years to restore his cattle farm to something resembling what it was.
"I try not to think about it too much," he said.
The clean-up contractors are due to clear his block any day now.
Jade is preparing to see his family history carted away on the back of a truck.
"It will probably be another sad day, but it will be a relief too," he said.
"A little bit closer to being at home again."
While busily rebuilding sheds and fences, cattle farmer Warren Salway smiles and laughs a lot.
He's trying to stay positive as he works tirelessly to get the business he spent decades building running again.
His smile masks an even deeper loss — his brother and nephew, Robert and Patrick Salway, died not far from his home defending their own property from the fire.
"When I got word about my brother, I was in flames … battling away. It took probably three hours to sink in," he said.
Warren said Robert and Patrick were just metres from their house when they were hit by a fireball.
"That was pretty hard to deal with," he said.
"It shouldn't have happened."
Amid these enormous losses, for many people around here the road to recovery is going to be long.
And out of the ashes, a stronger community is emerging.
"It does get on top of you a little bit after a while. But you just got to get up, dust yourself off and keep going," Warren said.
"You've just got to move on, haven't you?"
Watch the full story on Four Corners tonight at 8:30pm on ABC TV or livestream on the Four Corners Facebook page.
Credits
Reporter: Stephanie March
Producer: Sashka Koloff
Researcher: Lucy Carter
Photography: Harriet Tatham
Digital Producer: Laura Gartry
Video production: Georgina Piper
Videography: Ryan Sheridan