As 35 employees with physical and intellectual disabilities packed and labelled products for some of Australia's leading brands, a large logistics exercise was underway to evacuate them from their Braemar factory.
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It was December 19 and the Green Wattle Creek fire was threatening the district.
With 90 per cent of the Disability Services Australia employees relying on public transport, which was no longer running, getting them home safely was going to be a challenge.
Road closures were thrown in the mix and some families were subject to emergency level warnings and were unable to leave their properties.
"When you are in a factory with people with a range of disabilities and smoke all around, it was important to keep anxiety levels down," said the head of Braemar's new management team Daniel Bennett.
"We had been working with our work, health and safety team to monitor air quality and closely analysing the fire situation when we decided it was best to evacuate.
"Although we acted as early as possible, it was still a hairy situation."
DSA employment support manager Graham D'Arcy led the evacuation plan.
He and Daniel phoned all families and carers to assess the risk of team members returning home.
Community transport was contacted to pick up employees from the factory.
Some supported accommodation providers had already evacuated their residents and were able to collect the DSA employees on their way to the central evacuation point of Mittagong RSL.
Two employees, Mark and Kevin, were unable to return home due to road closures and fire threats.
Mr D'Arcy said he had called Mark's mum to update her on the situation.
"She was told it was too late to leave her home. Her power was out and her mobile battery was almost flat as we rushed to make a plan," he said.
"It was decided Mark would stay at a Mittagong motel and I would be at the same complex for support."
Mark had never spent a night by himself and his Mum was naturally concerned he wouldn't be able to cope. However, Mark ended up enjoying his first night of independence.
"I am very happy with DSA," Mark said.
"The managers looked after me when I could not get home because of the fires and I felt safe."
Kevin ended up staying at another motel complex with Braemar's factory supervisor Shaun Rohwer nearby if needed.
Braemer is one of four DSA Packaging Solutions sites which provide meaningful paid employment for 500 people with disability.
The supported employees deal with products for more than 70 local, national and international business customers each year.
Daniel said it was very fortunate the factory and homes of employees were undamaged in the fire.
He said there were valuable lessons learned during the complex evacuation.
"I was really proud of how we worked together so well as a team in a time of crisis to ensure the safety and wellbeing of everyone," Daniel said.
