The Currowan fire is now out, which is great, but so too are remote telephone networks.
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For weeks, Sharyn and Michael Hanlon were in the thick of the fire named for the forest that surrounds their home.
The Kings Highway was closed, landlines were cut and, in the best of times, the area west of Nelligen has patchy mobile reception.
Getting a mowing and maintenance business moving again when your shed and all your equipment has been destroyed is a big ask.
Doing it without a phone is even more frustrating, so on Saturday, February 15, the Hanlons headed to Mogo.
There, they helped other burned out business people celebrate the arrival of demountable buildings for a pop-up mall - and shared their own story.
"We have not had a landline since the end of November," Ms Hanlon told Australian Community Media.
"They keep telling me to ring 112 for emergency mobile WiFi.
"We work on satellite, so we have no mobile coverage at all."
Via satellite, they have been able to use social media messaging to communicate with each other, but it is not ideal.
"Michael rang me on New Year's Eve on Facebook Messenger to tell me to call Triple O," Mrs Hanlon said.
"Communication is terrible."
Mogo's celebration on Saturday was thanks to BizRebuild, the aid arm of the Business Council of Australia.
Mrs Hanlon says keeping a small business afloat during the disaster has been tough.
"He is on his own," she said of her husband.
"His shed got burnt out, he has lost all his tools and just getting help from Centrelink is a tough battle."
Listening to the Hanlons share their story was Bega MP Andrew Constance.
"Stupid" was his description of a relief approach which expects traumatised small businesses to take on more debt.
"Appalling" was his word for the way Telstra has responded to the needs of remote residents.
"The only way you can do a recovery is from the community up, not from the top down," he said.
"There is this disconnect between government and small business in particular.
"The guidelines are not even facilitating people taking up the grants and the loans.
"There is something wrong. I will keep bashing away at these people everyday because they are not hearing us.
"We had small business forums during the week and the big issue is that people have gone through a summer of hell and have lost equipment, lost sheds, lost their businesses, lost their homes.
"The climate is not right to move forward with confidence in terms of taking on debt, which is where the national government is at, which is just stupid."
Instead, Mr Constance is urging the federal government to consider history.
"(in) the Howard era, they saw adjustment packages; they have to look at this very closely," he said.
"It is not just about putting cash into accounts, and in some cases in the wrong accounts, it has got to be more in-depth and understanding of true hardship.
"We have gone from fire to flood, a disaster on a disaster. Without trying to be negative, knowing there are great positive things happening, we have to be realistic. The hardship is profound, it is real, it is deep and it is very hard."
Mr Hanlon wants an immediate improvement to mobile phone coverage on the accident-prone Kings Highway.
"People are getting stuck up there," he said.
"Telstra has been appalling," Mr Constance said.
"They have taken too long to get their act together.
"NBN were all over the place here early on in this disaster recovery.
"Telstra? I do not know what the national government is doing to kick their butts, but Telstra has not realised that people in the bush need communications more than anyone in the centre of Batemans Bay and they are not moving quick enough.
"I know of Telstra employees who have not been mobilised to our region, unlike in previous disasters.
"It has not happened here. So Telstra needs to get their act together very quickly because the first point of call people need is the ability to communicate.
"Then they need Service NSW to case manage them, which is what I want to happen for the Hanlons."
Telstra Regional General Manager Chris Taylor released the following statement: "As soon as was safe to do so and access was granted, we've been working hard to restore services to areas devastated by these unprecedented fires. Restoration work is complex and depending on the damage, unavoidably takes time. This includes rebuilding and repairing damaged or destroyed infrastructure such as mobile sites and identifying and assessing faults, trenching work and repairing cabling and copper for fixed line services."
