Mr Duffy, from the Borenore brigade of the Rural Fire Service (RFS), was one of the hundreds of volunteers and emergency service workers who, together, put tens of thousands of hours into fighting fires on Mount Canobolas and at  Belerada Creek earlier this year. 

He put four full nights – 12 hour shifts – into fighting the fire and protecting property, including being on one of the first responding trucks.

“By the time you got to the road you could see the smoke billowing and you could see the flame, [the flames] were 50-60, maybe 100 feet high I thought ‘Jeez, what are we going to do here?’,” he said. 

“It was a very scary-looking situation.”

Towac Brigade Robert Cunial also pulled several night shifts in a row and said it was hard to convey how tired you were afterwards – with sleeping through the day a difficulty. 

He was one of the dozens of emergency service workers and volunteers who came together in Robertson Park for an appreciation day organised by Kennards Hire and Orange City Council. 

The day had a sausage sizzle, kids activities and a demonstration of taking apart a car in a motor vehicle accident, as well as a visit from a helicopter. 

Kennards Orange assistant manager Luke Compt said it was a chance to thank volunteers. 

“If it wasn’t for these guys there would have been a lot more property lost with the Mount Canobolas fire and with the [Belerada] fire there would have been loss of infrastructure,” he said.

“When that’s on fire everyone draws their attention to that, without these guys it would have been catastrophic.

“Just an appreciation of these guys, they don’t get a lot back and as David [Hoadley, RFS Canobolas Zone commander] said, post-fire they normally get a lot of negativity as to why things did or didn't happen. 

Superintendent Hoadley said it was a nice change to see over a dozen fire trucks at a site without having to deal with an active blaze. 

“It’s great of Kennards and the Council and businesses to put something like this on and I know they very much appreciate it, volunteers don’t do it for recognition but when you’ve had two big fires like the Belerada Creek fire at the same time and it stretches our volunteers quite a bit,” he said

“Everyone’s been so supportive and it’s a good story to tell.”