The last time Matthew Miller was in Wagga, it was an incredibly emotional day.
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An RFS volunteer, Mr Miller spent almost two weeks fighting the Dunns Road fire near Ellerslie alongside his brother and 18-year-old twin sons.
"I've never seen anything like it, even the older guys were saying they've never seen anything like that fire in their lifetime," Mr Miller said.
"[The fire] broke away on that really bad Friday and jumped about six kilometres across the Snowy Mountains Highway, it got so bad we were just spotting each house.
"If it weren't for the team in Tumblong, it would not have probably kept going on to Gundagai or further."
Stretched to their breaking point, Mr Miller recalls there were some days he would be on the frontline for more than 24 hours straight, because "there was just no-one to relieve you, everyone was already there with you".
His family all together in the one vehicle, there was one point when he truly feared he would never see his wife, Rebecca, again.
She and the couple's youngest sons had evacuated to Uranquinty during the height of concern for the Snowy Mountains area.
"We had to drive through the fire, my brother was at the wheel, my two boys were in the back," Mr Miller said.
"It was terrifying, we couldn't see a thing in front of us, the flames were blowing one side to the other. It seemed like we were in there forever, but it was really only a few minutes."
Following the ordeal, it was in Wagga that he re-united with his family.
"It was a very emotional moment when we finally saw each other again, there were a lot of tears," Mr Miller said.
"I'm just glad we got through it safely, hope I never see it again."
As the drummer of Riverina band Rockit, he returned to Wagga under a far more joyous pretense.
Second up in a line up of local bands at the Raise Your Voice concert for bushfire relief, his band played a medley of classic rock tunes for the crowd.