A tent city of firefighters in Glen Innes is settling in for a long fight as about 200 volunteers and staff prepare to stick around until mid-October.
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Volunteers from across the state have been deployed to bolster regional Rural Fire Services (RFS) and fire and rescue teams to a strength of about 600.
The temporary accommodation has been set up in Meade Park as the battle continues to contain the earliest, worst fires in a generation, which began tearing through the bush weeks ago.
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An RFS spokesman said many of those people, who were travelling from as far as Albury, Young and Walgett, were leaving behind their own difficult circumstances.
"[Some are] places where people are affected by the drought themselves," he said.
"Those people have left their own set of hard circumstances to come and help people here that have been affected by the bushfires, and that's really humbling."
The spokesman said the New England remained beset by "quite significant fires" that would require substantial resources "for quite a while" to bring under control.
He expected the tent city to remain at the Glen Innes rugby grounds until the middle of October.
"Certainly, if we get another cold front come through with more bad fire weather, there's potential there for it to continue - particularly with the drought conditions and the landscape the way they are."
The tents are insulated and airconditioned, and the camp also has a cafeteria with two big flatscreen TVs, among other comforts of home.
The Glen Innes Salvation Army is helping to provide catering - and the firefighters will need it: they face 12-hour workdays, rotating every five days, including travel.
"If you do see our firefighters in the area, give them a wave and say hello - they probably will be tired; they do work pretty hard," the RFS spokesman said.
There is also a similar tent camp set up in Dorrigo.