Tim Johnson, Remote firefighting - Sweat, smoke and steam (DOCO 2021)

The black summer of 2019/20 was my first season as a remote firefighter for the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service. I am a project officer with NPWS, however everyone is encouraged to complete the training; its all hands on deck when the fires hit, especially a season as as apocalyptic as the one that just passed. I rubbed shoulders with veteran Rural Fire Service Volunteers that were tough as nails; none of the ones I met mentioned anything about us being paid while they were not. All of the NPWS members that I crewed with took me under their wing, while we as a collective gave ground day after day to the crackling dry conditions and a seemingly insatiable beast marching to the orders of the wind. I was deployed on fires across the Blue Mountains, including the Gospers Mountain, Erskine Creek and Ruined Castle fires, getting dropped in by chopper to hastily prepared helipads as we chased the fire edge, and sometimes getting winched out like a reverse tea-bag when required. This collection of photos were taken on my Samsung S10, which I kept in an elastic cargo pocket on my leg for easy access. This wasn't a photo-holiday, there was work to do.

Images have been resized for web display, which may cause some loss of image quality. Note: Original high-resolution images are used for judging.