“Right here we are the meat in the sandwich, so thanks for coming down.”

And so began Mark Coombes’s briefing for a new shift of firefighters in Nowra.

There were fires to the north, fires to the south, minimum 20-metre flame heights on one side of the Shoalhaven River, 40 metres on the other, and in areas that hadn’t burned in decades.

The dirty pyrocumulous cloud rumbled with its self-generated thunder outside.

“The southerly is going to hit around nine, 9.30 and unfortunately you’re the ones that deal with it,” Coombes continued.

“What it’s going to do I have no fucking idea.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The southerly wind hits the rugby club which is the staging area for emergency services for Nowra, and the sky turns black on Saturday. Photograph: Jessica hromas/The Guardian

He was wrong. The southerly hit two hours earlier than expected, roaring through the forest with gusts up to 101km/h, whipping up dirt and dust and ash and filling the briefing room with smoke.

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Strike teams rushed to Milton and St Georges Basin where there were a few nursing homes which they weren’t sure had been evacuated. A short time later a fire and rescue strike team was told it was going to Kangaroo Valley. There were intakes of breath.

Kangaroo Valley was later reported to be under serious threat. Not everyone in those communities had left.

At Nowra one firefighter explained the strategy: we can’t stop the fire, so we’re just trying to direct it as best we can.

Strike teams were sent across the state on Saturday, moved around like chess pieces against an opponent that ignores all the rules.

Earlier on Saturday was quiet. The predicted north-westerly winds weren’t blowing. The fires were still at watch and act level. Until suddenly they weren’t. Twenty fires had sparked between Nowra and Batemans Bay. It got worse the further south you travelled.

“It’s turned to shit everywhere,” one senior RFS firefighter told Guardian Australia from a distant fireground.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The southerly wind hits the rugby club on Saturday which is the staging area for emergency services for Nowra, blowing dust across the fire trucks. Photograph: Jessica Hromas/The Guardian

Well before it got really dire for the north side of the Shoalhaven River, Darin Sullivan, station officer for Shellharbour Fire and Rescue, noted that while it might look like the fire was relatively far away from communities, it was really just a matter of 15 to 25km, and we have seen fires in recent days regularly spotting 15km ahead of the firefront.

“I was at Batemans Bay on New Year’s Eve and saw the devastation down there first hand,” he said.

“I ended up evacuating my wife out on the firetruck. She was in Conjola when the firestorm run over that day. So everyone’s got stories.

“Tricky days.”

On the Princes Highway huge dark columns of smoke stood on the horizon in every direction. The highway closed south of Jervis Bay road, the only way south was to wind through the bushland between Jervis Bay and the highway, towards Bewong, only to be stopped again.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Currowan fire front as seen from the Princes Highway, south of Nowra, on Saturday. Photograph: Jessica Hromas/The Guardian

Out on the firegrounds crews raced from street to street. Guardian Australia came across one from Queensland, another from Sydney’s north shore. The fire spotted, and drove east, threatening the Jervis Bay communities before the southerly came through to drive it north with 80km/h gusts.

At St Georges Basin residents who stayed behind were in gardens and on roofs, hosing down houses and trees as text messages come through warning everyone from Nowra to Kiola about 90km south to take shelter. The enormous flank of the Currowan fire, and related blazes, was moving east. At its northern end, near Nowra, the fire generated its own thunderstorm.

The change wasn’t even there yet.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A man sweeps leaves off the roof of his house in St Georges Basin. Photograph: Jessica Hromas/The Guardian

Australia’s bushfire crisis is a gruelling long-running catastrophe which is taking its toll on everyone. Frustrations are showing, even among the relentlessly strong community spirit that has defined the emergency services and those they’re protecting.

Barely a day goes by now that someone doesn’t abuse the prime minister, and there are inter-service grumbles about different tactics and management.

In the room where Coombes, NSW Fire and Rescue divisional commander for the north, gave his briefing, there were firefighters sitting and waiting to be sent out, while simultaneously hearing of property losses, and knowing that another shift might come in to replace them before they could do anything.

Longreach sits along the shore of the Shoalhaven River, the scattering of houses along the single road surrounded by towering trees.

At a property a group of people stayed to defend. At one house, three of them are sat back watching the cricket. Taking comfort from it, just like Morrison said, it was wryly noted.

They were all current and former firefighters, and between them Brent Edwards reckoned they’ve got about 300 years of firefighting experience.

“And we’ve all got every bit of equipment known to man,” says Edwards.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Retired former station commander of the Shoalhaven, Brent Edwards, at the house belonging to his friend Flash, at Longreach. Photograph: Jessica Hromas/The Guardian

“My concern is, as always, we’re for want of a better word experts. And we’ve got everything. What about the poor punters with just a garden hose?”

Edwards is the former station commander of the Shoalhaven fire station, and was back from the Gold Coast visiting friends.

This situation is “incomparable” to anything he saw in his 35 years as a professional firefighter and a lifetime being a “student of the weather” as a surfer, fisherman and diver.

“What’s causing climate change is for another day,” he says.

“They just have to admit that it’s changed dramatically and do something about it.”