In the days before Christmas, white ash settles across the fire ground and the eerie haze of smoke lingers amongst the burnt landscape. This haunting scene was captured the morning after an inferno burnt through the small rural town of Bilpin in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney. It was the third time in one week that the area had been impacted by a firefront. More than 80% of the iconic Blue Mountains World Heritage Area was burnt throughout Australia's unprecedented Black Summer Bushfires.

Around the country millions of hectares of land was burnt during the fire season, which saw the destruction of thousands of homes and the loss of 26 lives.