Merridy, who lives on Hepburn Street, recounted what it was like to see the fire spread so quickly.

"I'm usually away working at Singleton. I had been glued to the Fires Near Me app and I got a little worried but thought 'nah, fire burns up hill and I'm at the bottom of the hill, no worries'," she said.

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"Given how serious the Gospers fire was getting I stayed home Monday to prepare. I was clearing, getting fuel out of jerry cans, packing valued trinkets and so on. Thursday night I texted work at 3:30am saying I need to go home and I packed the car with more stuff. Friday I was ready to evacuate just in case but still thought it'll probably be okay.

"But Saturday when it came over the ridge and down the hill at Secret Creek I knew we were in trouble and f--- me, what an experience."

Once the fire had passed, Merridy later returned to the area that had burned to witness the destruction said she had mixed feeling after what she saw.

"I thought there were far more houses lost, [it's] amazing to see most were fine with even the most overgrown areas having the fire stop a metre from their door. The bush is odd, all the undergrowth is gone but the leaves only seared, could they burn further?

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"It's rather cool to be able to see all the creek beds and rocks, who'd have known what was there it was all buried beneath weeds. I was thinking 'well this is kinda good', the area will never get overgrown again and no more fires but then somebody posted a video to Facebook of the fires through here in 2013. How on earth did people let it get so overgrown again?

[It's] very disappointing that this town has so much beauty but almost nobody looks after it and few want to promote tourism."

With hot, dry and windy weather predicted to continue, and more than 130 fires burning across NSW, firefighters remain on high alert.