Outside Tumbarumba's fish and chip shop, where George and Katrina Dimitropoulos are handing out free egg and bacon rolls, half a dozen tired men are chewing and counting in the smoky haze.

They list the families now homeless since fires arrived on New Year's Day, the streets worst hit and the miraculous stories of properties saved. They agree on 18 homes gone or severely damaged, mostly in the town's north and surrounding areas, "and we haven't even driven around yet".

Rodney Shaw outside his childhood home in Tumbarumba. Credit:Zach Hope

On the NSW Rural Fire Service emergency map, the old timber town of about 1800 people is a black dot pinned between two ever-expanding walls of fire drawing together across the state border.

"If you don't need to be here, leave now," Snowy Valleys Council officers told a "short-but-not-so-sweet" community meeting on Monday afternoon, where locals collected donated canned food, water and toiletries.