'To deal with a bad fire, you personalise it. It is the monster you must bring to its knees. You must destroy it utterly. It is the myth of the firefighter. His legend. That is where the courage comes from.'

Bush Fire marries the poems of Hilary Elfick, written after the devastating New South Wales bushfires of 1994, with photos taken by David Malikoff of the Telegraph Point Rural Fire Service volunteers battling a bushfire on his Red Hill property.

"But what it is really about is tackling our own monster, finding the courage, the skill, the method, and how we can and need to pull together to defeat a terror which faces us. It is what we do."