With NSW experiencing unprecedented hot and dry conditions over the past several months, not even the lush rainforest in the Barrington Tops National Park has come out unscathed.
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On November 23, dry lightning struck the park igniting two fires - the Carters Road Stewarts Brook fire and the Mount Royal fire.
As conditions worsened, the fires ended up burning a combined total of 15,028 hectares, of which 11,028 hectares were in the national park.
Within that area lies part of the World Heritage listed Gondwana Rainforest of Australia.
The Gondwana rainforests are the most extensive area of subtropical rainforest in the world consisting of more than 40 separate reserves totaling 368,665ha extending from north near Brisbane to the most southern end in the Barrington Tops.
According to National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS), Barrington Tops area manager, Anthony Signor almost 40,000ha or 11 per cent of Gondwana lies in the Tops.
"About 10 per cent of this was fire affected," Anthony said.
"Of all the Gondwana forests about 54 per cent were fire affected. But there are varying degrees to the impact."
Although more than 1000 NPWS staff are professinally trained in firefighting as its a core part of their business, the sheer scale of this fire season has never been seen before.
In the NPWS Barrington Tops area office, 23 of the 28 staff are trained in firefighting and were ever-present during the State-wide fire emergency which saw a large portion of NSW alight.
But the impact of the drought, which caused a large amount of the tree crowns to die back in many areas, meant the fires were intense.
To live near such a diverse and unique natural environment like that in the Barrington Tops National Park is pretty special.
From woodlands and eucalypt forests leading to sub-alpine landscapes and ancient and primitive plant life, the park is a nature-lover's haven.
But ensuring the conservation of the area, from its pristine waterways to the extensive untouched flora and fauna, is important to everyone.
"There are 23 named rivers and streams in Barrington Tops and it's home to more than 100 threatened species (both plant and animal)," Anthony explained.
"It's critical these areas are preserved. It's an area like the Barrington Tops, largely untouched by human beings, that provides the pristine water supply to the Manning and Hunter Valleys.
"We all depend on these areas for clean air and clean water, resources we fundamentally rely on."
Now it's all hands on deck to help the areas recover, regrow and to minimise any further loss of flora and fauna.
"Forests are dynamic. People think they are stagnant but they're not," Anthony explained.
"Fire changes the dynamic of the forest ecosystem. It might be the result of a single fire event or the result of fire frequency over the history of time."
As things start to regrow, so begins the battle of the forest; ecological warfare for the survival of the fittest, so to speak.
In some areas, it will be a bit of wait and see, while some locations may require more human intervention.
Some of the actions already underway include repairing infrastructure, clearing roads and fire trails, and emergency food drops to the threatened brush-tailed rock wallabies at Curracabundi National Park.
Additional feral pest control programs will also commence shortly, including for the Barrington Tops. NPWS and the University of Newcastle will be looking into impacts of feral pests and fire on threatened species habitat and endangered ecological communities.
For more information about the importance of protecting national parks visit, www.nationalparks.nsw.gov.au/conservation-and-heritage/why-national-parks-matter.
To learn more about what NPWS does to protect and conserve visit, www.nationalparks.nsw.gov.au/about-npws/what-we-do.
