More than 500 RFS Riverina Highlands District volunteers and staff who completed at least five days working to combat the fires have been presented with National Emergency Medals.

Among the recipients is Riverina Zone Group Captain Alan Brown who has been volunteering for the RFS for more than 50 years.

Mr Brown said that in his five decades volunteering, he had never seen anything to the scale of the Black Summer fires.

"Dunns Road was the biggest one, at its peak the fire front was 1000 kilometres," he said. "I've just never seen anything so completely uncontrollable."

Reflecting on his fellow volunteers, Mr Brown said the award is well-targeted and has been presented to those who deserve it the most.

Mr Brown said while the bush fires were a nightmare, claiming the lives of more than 20 firefighters, there are some fond moments he will never forget.

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"There are a lot of rewards from volunteering, but of course, there are downsides too," he said.

"There was one day I was up the Westbrook Road and I had 14 trucks and that day we managed to stop the fire, the next stop line was the Tumbarumba Road which was 20 odd kilometres away, but we stopped it that day and that particular day the fire burnt around 12 houses, so we saved them all."

Another memory Mr Brown will look back on with pride is helping the "locals" defend their homes.

"Another day we went up and the locals had put in a three or four-kilometre fire break and we were able to go in and help them and we cleaned the break and we never lost that break and that saved a massive amount of country from burning," he said.

"There was also another time where the grandson of a property owner had gotten badly burnt and we were able to help him, we got him on a helicopter and got him out of there."

Riverina Zone Group Captain Bruce Angel was also among those to receive the medal.

Mr Angel has volunteered for the RFS for more than 40 years.

"It's just what we do, if you look at the volunteers throughout the country in all different roles, all the different organisations, the volunteers are the backbone of a lot of the work behind the scene - it's just what you do as a community member," he said.

Mr Angel said it isn't about the recognition or medals, though he is appreciative that their hard work has been acknowledged.

"Especially the Dunns Road fire, it was a long and hard campaign and little did we realise when we were amongst the first trucks to go into that fire on the 27th of December 2019, that we'd still be there a month later trying to get it under control," he said.

"It was a great effort from all of the volunteers from the local area."

Mr Angel is no stranger to major incidents, but he admits that in his four decades as a volunteer, the Black Summer bush fires were by far the most challenging.

"When we first arrived, not in my wildest dreams would I have expected the fire to end up where it did and burn the amount of area it did and the lost homes and properties it did and the trauma that people went through, it was difficult and something I hope we don't go through again," he said.

For Riverina Zone Group Captain and medal recipient Calvin Lippiatt, he began volunteering alongside his wife Diane Lippiatt in 2005 after retiring from the Royal Australian Air Force as a firefighter.

"We were involved in the bush fires in Port Macquarie because that's where our youngest daughter lives and we were up there for about a week working and then we came home and then the bush fires here started and we were pretty much out then for about a month to two months," Mr Lippiatt said.

"We thought we could stop them a number of times and then they would jump or move. You try not to put yourself in danger but sometimes you have to put yourself in harm's way. We lost a lot of firefighters during those fires, so it isn't without its risk but it isn't without its rewards either."

Similarly, Mr Lippiatt said the Black Summer bush fires are the most intense fire he has ever seen, and he has been a firefighter since the nineties.

But, if you were to ask Mr Lippiatt if he would do it all again, he would tell you yes.

"It's a sense of community and we do it because we can," he said.

"As firefighters, we're meeting people at their lowest of lows, whether they're worried about their houses, property or livestock or they've been in a motor vehicle accident, people are at their lowest and they need the community to come together."

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