Experts believe rebuilding communities affected by Australian bushfires will take a very long time.
More than six million hectares of land has been burnt through in the states of New South Wales and Victoria, and at least 24 people have died in the blazes.
Although the fires continue to burn, many uncontrollably, focus has already turned to what it will take to rebuild following the devastation.
Associate professor Thayaparan Gajendran, of the University of Newscastle, warns it will not be an easy task.
"Communities' general rebuild will take two to three, four, years, but the predictions are that the wildlife will take a decade or more," Gajendran told Newshub.
More than 1500 homes have been destroyed in the blazes, while it is estimated that as many as half a billion animals have been killed in NSW alone.
Gajendran says it will required a monumental effort to rebuild following such widespread devastation.
"It needs to be coordinated well, that's where sometimes the challenge becomes harder to manage - [requiring] coordination and communication between many multi-layered organisations and sharing knowledge to help communities."
Australia's Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, on Monday announced a AU$2 billion national recovery fund to help with the rebuild.
Another recovery fund was also established in Victoria, with initial funding of $AU50 million. However the state's premier Daniel Andrews said it will cost "many hundreds of millions of dollars" to rebuild in the region.
"It won't be $50 million, it won't be $500 million, it will be a lot more than that, but that's what we have to do."
On Monday, conditions offered a brief respite, giving emergency workers a window to reopen some blocked roads and evacuate people who had been trapped for days.
Conditions later in the week are forecast to worsen once again.
With no end in sight, firefighters in Australia are nearing breaking point. On Saturday, Morrison announced the Defence Force Reserves would be deployed to the fire zones to help efforts.
Members of the New Zealand Defence Force have also been sent across the Tasman to offer support.
