Just days before a firestorm ripped through the Kangaroo Valley in the New South Wales Southern Highlands, wildlife carer Lyn Obern evacuated 10 bare-nosed wombats from her refuge.

While containment lines and a change in wind direction saved her home and animal shelter, she is now responding to urgent calls to rescue more bushfire orphans.

As authorities warned it was likely the valley would come under fire threat and wipe out their house and their Wisdom Wombat Refuge, Ms Obern made the decision to remove her surrogate babies.

"You were living on your wits the whole time. It was very frightening," she said.

"We had nine wombats, but just before the fire hit on the 4th of January, I had a phone call from a lady from the local road that got wiped out, who had found a distressed joey wombat in her backyard.

"We just couldn't wait for mum to come back that night, we didn't know what was going to happen, so we brought the animal into care, a little girl called Phoenix.

"And good thing we did because the mum is probably dead, there is nothing left, it was razed to the ground and their property was razed to the ground, so this little girl was the first survivor."

Scorched earth where there once was rainforest in Kangaroo Valley. ( ABC Illawarra: Kelly Fuller )

A friend offered Ms Obern and her wombats a safe space at their home in the nearby village of Camberwarra, where they moved furniture around the house to accommodate the animals.

They also turned a wheelie bin on its side in the garage and brought in blocks of ice to give the wombats a cooler space during searing hot temperatures of up to 43 degrees Celsius.

On the Saturday night, the furious fire came close to the home they had escaped to in Camberwarra, where they kept embers at bay for many hours, before eventually receiving the good news their own home and the wombat refuge were saved.

Ms Obern spent the rest of the week resettling the animals in the refuge, and is now responding to calls to rescue injured animals.

Wildlife carer and wombat expert Lyn Obern nursing a bushfire victim — Sparkle the wombat. ( ABC Illawarra: Kelly Fuller )

The first survivors

During the interview she was bottle feeding the second and third survivors — Cinders and Sparkle.

"Cinders is slowly recovering from her shock and disorientation. She arrived with sore red eyes and throat from smoke inhalation," Ms Obern said.

"Sparkle was found on the fireground, no mum around, no burns luckily, so was obviously safe in the burrow when the fire came through, but was quite hungry."

Cinders the wombat joey is recovering in the home of wildlife carer, Lyn Obern. ( ABC Illawarra: Kelly Fuller )

Ms Obern said the bushfire had an unimaginable impact on the local population.

"We will probably never know what we have lost," she said.

She said many locals were already letting her know that only some of their resident wombats had returned.

"Some people are saying that delightedly 'Oh, my big old wombat trolled up this morning and that is such a relief that he is there', but out of the 10 that they had, only two have turned up and the rest haven't," Ms Obern said.

"Charred bodies, you can almost not tell what they were, they are just lying, frozen in position, kangaroos stuck in fences and burnt.

"The carnage is just heartbreaking to go and see, and that is just where we are seeing it. We haven't been into the deep bush yet."

Untold impact on local population

She also warned the territorial side of the animals will become more prevalent.

In parts of the Kangaroo Valley nothing remains of the lush green landscape the area is so famous for. ( ABC Illawarra: Kelly Fuller )

"The ones that have survived are now competing for food that doesn't exist, so the younger ones that have made it, the big guys will kill them," she said.

"So, you have the potential for burrows to have been flooded in the rain that followed the fire, there is no food and there is a mange epidemic affecting the animals, and mange is exacerbated by stress."

Ms Obern and her husband, Paul, also take in and rehome other native wildlife, such as kangaroo joeys that have lost their mothers.