BlazeAid volunteer Mary Howarth spends decade helping farmers impacted by natural disasters

Mary Howarth still thinks about a group of people stuck inside their property for 40 hours during the Bega Valley bushfire in 2019.

Warning: This story contains descriptions of natural disasters that some people may find upsetting

“One of them was badly burnt. He was going in and out of consciousness, so they had to put him in the fish pond.”

It is one of hundreds of survival stories Ms Howarth has absorbed in her nine years with BlazeAid, a national non-for-profit organisation that puts volunteers on disaster-struck properties to help people back on their feet.

In that time she has served on 17 camps — coordinating nine — that helped towns hit by fire, drought, flood and cyclone.