The Douglas and Berlinde Rand fled their New South Wales organic farm last weekend to escape the bushfires that have been sweeping across Australia, destroying thousands of properties and killing dozens of people.

Emergency services blocked the roads back into the Snowy Mountain Highway, because of the fire threat as well as the fact that they were covered with trees, power lines and animal carcasses.

Needing to check their animals and water any surviving plants they walked back in with their son Jes, who wanted to help.

"As we were coming down the road there were branches and trees falling behind us, and trees and branches falling in front of us. There was no wildlife. It's normally a bird paradise. There were carcasses strewn around. And it really looked like an atomic bomb had gone off," said Berlinde Rand.

Apart from half of their sheep and a few lemon trees, the farm was destroyed, but their house miraculously survived. Compared to many others in the lower alpine area they had been lucky.

It had been one of the worst weeks since the fires began in September. More than two dozen people have been killed and more than half of all fatalities occurred in the start of January, traditionally Australia's hottest month.

Fire crews used cooler weather in the week to get some rest and contemplate the battles they had just fought.

"Saturday was the most horrific day that, I think, any of us have ever spent on the fire ground. We didn't realize how bad it was going to be. It was just something we had never come across before and the big thing is we all come out good," said Rural Fire Services Group Captain Ray Hill, as some of his crew slept on the ground.

During the respite, Prime Minister Scott Morrison visited bushfire victims. Morrison was sometimes heckled as he came under intense criticism for his government's handling of the response to the fires.

"People are angry. I understand it. People have suffered great loss. People are hurting. People are raw. That's what happens in natural disasters and we will continue to stay focused on exerting all of our effort to deliver all of the resource, and all of the support to ensure that all of these communities can come through," Morrison said after returning to the capital Canberra, which has the world's worst air quality that week because of the fires.

Morrison then announced the first-ever national deployment of Australia's army to fight the fires as well as a multi-billion U.S. dollar fund to help people who've lost their homes.

Wildlife has also been hard hit. Ecologists at the University of Sydney warned one billion animals are likely to have died in the fires.

For many animals that survived the inferno there is now no habitat to return to raising concerns that some already endangered species could now be at risk of extinction. Thousands of farm animals have also been killed.

Experts predict more than two million sheep and eight million cows might perish by the end of the fire season.

The bushfires, which have now burned much more land that the 2019 Amazon, Russian and California fires combined, are expected to intensify.

The New South Wales government said the disaster might not be fully under control until March, by which time the impact on the economy is now expected to exceed 110 billion U.S. dollars.