A strike team of New Zealand firies based in Queanbeyan are amazed by the size and ferocity of the blazes they tackle here - and also the generosity of Canberrans and the people on the way to the fires.
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"It's been outstanding," Bruce Janes, their leader said.
"The fires here are much bigger both in scale - the sheer landscape size - and their ferocity.
"Getting your crown fire 20 metres out of the top of the tree. A big running, fast-moving fire - that's unusual in New Zealand where there are smaller fires, with less dramatic fire behaviour.
"It's just more intense in Australia."
But the fridge compensates.
"On the way to the fire on the side of the road is a fridge with a long, long lead to someone's house the locals have written on the side of the fridge 'For the firies'.
"That fridge is stocked full of drinks for the firefighters, all out out of their own pockets. It just sits there, alone on the side of the road, and if you need a Bundaberg or an orange juice, you pull up and you grab a drink out of the fridge, and all you've got to do is sign the fridge.
"How about that? Outstanding!"
Mr Janes is usually the Principal Rural Fire Officer for North Canterbury at the top of South Island. He knows the Australian territory, though, because he was deployed here for the first time in 2003 - the first ever deployment to an Australian wildfire (as they call them in New Zealand).
There is an international community of firefighters which stretches across Australia, New Zealand, California and Canada, with men and women from each country coming and going according to the need and the stage of the fire season.
The 20 Kiwi firefighters in the strike team come from all over the country. They're now based in Hamilton's Motel in Queanbeyan (where the motel owner plans a farewell thank-you dinner when they head home on January 20).
They've had five working days so far, attacking spot fires and the main fire front.
"We've been working on the line securing the fire edge that is bubbling, still active so that when you get one of your hot, windy days it's better protected - as in the villages around the fire edge, houses, that sort of thing."
"And then on the really stinking, hot days, we're out on initial attack and ready to jump on the next start. That's our role as a strike team.
"Highly mobile."
Tuesday was their day off and they were cleaning equipment in the yard of the Queanbeyan motel. The NSW RFS fire trucks they use were parked and clean.
Once the chores were done, would they snooze of see the Canberra sights?
Both. "Try not get arrested. That's important," the Kiwi firefighter said, with the driest of dry Kiwi humour.
Steve Evans
Steve Evans is a reporter on The Canberra Times. He's been a BBC correspondent in New York, London, Berlin and Seoul and the sole reporter/photographer/paper deliverer on The Glen Innes Examiner in country New South Wales. "All the jobs have been fascinating - and so it continues."
Steve Evans is a reporter on The Canberra Times. He's been a BBC correspondent in New York, London, Berlin and Seoul and the sole reporter/photographer/paper deliverer on The Glen Innes Examiner in country New South Wales. "All the jobs have been fascinating - and so it continues."
