Artist's black summer artwork hung in RFS headquarters

Painter, RFS volunteer and Eurobodalla local, Ritchey Sealy began an ongoing series of works capturing his experience serving in the bushfires.

For Mr Sealy, painting about the black summer bushfires was an important way to capture the historical event he had lived through, and to record the way the community came together in their hour of greatest need.

He wanted to show the desperation and devastation of the black summer bushfires in his paintings.

"The paintings tell the story of what we went through," he said.

"These men went to war.

"I wanted to show the danger they faced and the desperate attempt to do something.

"There are so many stories of bravery in the fires."

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He was the Bodalla RFS operations commander during Black Summer, spending days on end fighting the flames - an experience he said was "still etched in my mind".

"It is important we remember what happened," he said.

The professional painter has always been captivated by impressionist military art, capturing historic wars in beautiful, yet graphic, artworks.

He was inspired by impressionist depictions of Australians during both the World Wars, and aimed to depict black summer as the battle he experienced.

In painting the works, Mr Sealy found some peace. Like war veterans, Mr Sealy suffered PTSD after the fires. Painting helped bring him relief.

Mr Sealy promoted his paintings in Facebook RFS groups, which eventually came to the attention of NSW RFS Commissioner Rob Rogers.

When Mr Rogers saw the paintings, he asked for one to be hung in his office at the RFS operation centre and headquarters in Sydney's Olympic Park.

Mr Sealy travelled to Sydney on the weekend of August 27 and 28 to personally give the artwork to the commissioner, and to have a tour of the operations centre.