The Blue Mountains community has come together to reflect on the devastating fires that a year ago engulfed their homes and lives, and the "much longer journey to recovery" still in front of them.
A year ago, as firefighters were battling more than 600 blazes burning across the state, people living in the Blue Mountains were in the path of what would become the wost natural disaster in the region's history.
The bushfires marching across the dense bush of the Blue Mountains would burn for almost two weeks, but it was one afternoon that would be remembered as the blackest day.
On October 17, 2013, fires ripped through towns such as Winmalee, Springwood and Yellow Rock, the villages of Mt Wilson and Mt Irvine, and tore up the northwestern part of Mt Victoria.
Now, a year later, Blue Mountains Mayor Mark Greenhill says the community is still far from over the trauma of last year.
"It's not just about rebuilding bricks and mortar, it's also about rebuilding lives," Mr Greenhill said at a park in Springwood on Friday, before a service to mark the one-year anniversary.
"Today is not the end, it is a milestone in what will be a much longer journey to recovery."
The bushfires that burned through the mountains between October 16 and October 29 destroyed 204 homes and damaged hundreds more.
The fires would leave emotional scars as much as a trail of destruction, hundreds of jobs would go and the local economy would lose about $100 million in activities.
The impact on the environment would also be long lasting.
NSW Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said one fire alone destroyed 195 homes and damaged more than 100 others in the lower Blue Mountains in towns such as Winmalee and Yellow Rock.
"And of course as we commemorate here today, we acknowledge that in one afternoon more than 200 homes were destroyed by fire," Mr Fitzsimmons said, and there was "extraordinary damage and destruction".
"The communities were devastated," he said.
"But most pleasingly, particularly across the Blue Mountains where the greatest number of homes was destroyed, we did not lose any lives."
Still, while Friday was a day of reflection, Mr Fitzsimmons said it also served as a warning as "we look down the barrel of another fire season".
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