Rural Fire Service tent city to occupy Glen Innes' Mead park into October

Volunteers from across the state have been deployed to bolster regional RFS and fire and rescue teams to a strength of about 600 in the battle to contain the earliest, worst fires in a generation that began tearing through bush and forest weeks ago.

An RFS spokesperson said many of those people were leaving behind their own difficult circumstances, with volunteers traveling from as far as Albury, Young and Walgett.

"Places where people are effected by the drought themselves, and those people have left their own set of hard circumstances to come and help people here that have been affected by the bush fires," he said.

"And that's really humbling."

The spokesperson said the New England remains beset by "quite significant fires" that will require substantial resources "for quite a while" to bring under control. He expected the mini-tent city to remain at the Glen Innes rugby grounds until the middle of October.

"These set of fires kicked sort of first week of Spring so 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 both insulated and air conditioned, and the camp also features a cafeteria with two big flatscreen TVs among other comforts of home. The Glen Innes Salvation Army is helping provide catering.

The firefighters will need it, facing a 12 hour a day workday 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," said the RFS spokesperson.

There is also a similar tent camp established in Dorrigo.

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