While 2.7 million hectares of NSW national parks burned in the 2019-20 bushfire season, firefighters, rangers and bushwalkers believe parks aren't ruined.
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Visitors returned to limited access, including extensive closures of the Morton National Park in the Southern Highlands and the entire closure of the Wombeyan Karst Conservation Reserve.
Local Rural Fire Services public liaison officer David Stimson said unparalleled conditions led to the severe destruction of the Morton National Park.
"With all the year's experience I've had with fairly hot fires this would be the worst or most intense," Mr Stimson said.
"It burnt very severely, very, very hot, and did a lot of damage."
He returned to find patches of native species, built to tolerate fire, had begun to recover.
"It is pleasing to see, he said.
However, the threat of erosion could further damage the landscape.
The Wombeyan Caves Karst Conservation Reserve in the Southern Tablelands and Central Tablelands area burned and subsequent flooding forced the closure of roads and visitor infrastructure.
A spokesperson for National Parks and Wildlife Services (NPWS) said the damage was widespread, including the visitor campground, walking tracks, roads and management buildings. There was also significant debris washed into the cave network.
David Bowman, Professor of Pyrogeography and Fire Science at the University of Tasmania said in the wake of wildfire is beauty. He also regularly engages in bushwalking and kayaking.
"Bush does recover and one of the dangers of emphasising how terrible the fires were is that the National Parks are ruined, but there is an intense beauty of how it recovers," Professor Bowman said.
National parks are in various states of ruin. Some parts burned with such astronomically high intensity, not a leaf or twig was spared.
Professor Bowman has made the study of fires his life's work, he said the potential erosion of land after a fire can be more frequent and severe.
After a fire, there is a higher risk of large-scale erosion events because of reduced ground cover, increased runoff, and flood. There can be gully erosion, landslips, and avalanches. Incredible sediment load in the rivers transported through the creeks into reservoirs and caves.
"Areas where there is still canopy cover or where the fuel wasn't burnt out, there is enough leaf litter and twigs and the nutrients will get quickly absorbed."
However, high rainfall can threaten the recovery of areas burned and an intense rain event can trigger more damage which can be disastrous for recovery.
At Nerriga, near the Morton National Park, the Bureau of Meteorology measured over 90 per cent of the rainfall received in August in just three days.
"It is a really big red flag," Professor Bowman said, "The rain event can do more ecological damage than the fire."
"Tracks will be washed out, culverts washed away... It washes the soil away, it causes channelling of the rivers, it causes sediment, it washes away the seed banks, it does terrible harm to the creek crossings."
It can also be bad for the aquatic vegetation for the fish, he added.
He said outdoor adventurers will have to adapt to these new conditions.
"There is a demented sort of beauty about it. It makes landscapes really interesting to look at, it strips everything back you can see the contours of the terrain.
"There is a whole lot of aesthetic changes. We will have to accept the fact that places will look different. There will be grieving but it changes and people will move on, it is just how it is."
Most of the Morton National Park is closed to protect the safety of visitors, a spokesperson from the NPWS said.
"In the Southern Highlands, the area north of the Shoalhaven River (from Bungonia in the west to Kangaroo Valley in the east), approximately 17,000 hectares of national park... remain closed.
"Some walks and lookouts have been re-opened in the Kangaroo Valley, Ettrema and Budawang Wilderness areas."
Across the state, 257 national parks were forced to close to visitors. NPWS reopened 143 areas to visitors and expects to reopen a further 49 by the end of the year.
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