More than a month after Gail Taylor abandoned her Conjola Park home as fire burned around her, she says it feels "amazing" and cleansing to have some rain.
But recent falls have proven a double-edged sword for her NSW South Coast community as it recovers from the bushfires, with the a flood evacuation warning issued on Monday for parts of the nearby Lake Conjola area.
"It's definitely a relief but you've got two separate things here," Ms Taylor told AAP.
"The people down the bottom (Lake Conjola) weren't as severely impacted with the fires and now they're having the floods.
"It is a lot to deal with as a community. Two separate things but both major."
Ms Taylor and her husband initially stayed to defend her property when a flank of the massive Currowan fire swept through the area on New Year's Eve, only to leave when "both sides of us were on fire".
Her home was spared while several neighbouring properties were destroyed.
She said the rain had a cleansing effect after a period where "everything felt dirty and all the time our houses inside were dirty".
"To get back to clean and the air is clean, you just automatically feel much better," she said.
News over the weekend that the Currowan fire had been extinguished felt like progress but she said they still had a major fire hazard, with debris and burnt leaves remaining.
At nearby Sussex Inlet, David Warner said it felt good to get rain but for a while there it had been cause for concern.
"It's been torrential here for the last four days straight," Mr Warner told AAP on Monday.
"I was getting real bad anxiety this morning because we were getting too much and I was worried about getting flooded, because I live right on the river."
Mr Warner, who spent one night at an evacuation centre as fire raged on New Year's Eve, said it was great to see blackened areas getting water.
Fellow Sussex Inlet local Pamela McCann said she was away for the rain but it had been a "big relief" to hear the Currowan blaze had been put out.
Australian Associated Press
