"When the fire reached our fire line and the line held, it felt good," Kevin Marsh said yesterday.
Mr Marsh, Craig Still, Gareth Bowen, Tony Ludlow and Shaun McIver, all members of the Dunedin rural firefighting team, returned on Thursday night after a 20-day tour of duty based in Westburn, a small town about 80km east of Melbourne.
Along with 700 others, including a 50-strong New Zealand contingent and teams from the United States and Canada, their task was to protect Westburn, the nearby town of Warburton, and a large reservoir which supplies Melbourne's drinking water.
Using bulldozers, diggers and handtools, they cleared and burnt scrub beneath trees to create fire breaks several kilometres long.
The towns and the firefighters' camp were evacuated twice as the fires approached, once on February 27 and again on Tuesday. But Mr Marsh and Mr Still said the fires petered out when they reached the line, much to everyone's relief.
For Mr Still, a Campus Watch officer at the University of Otago, this was his second time in Australia. He fought fires there in 2006 and said many of the same firefighters were at the camp again too.
It was the first time Mr Marsh, a forestry supervisor with City Forests, had fought fires overseas.
Both said they would do it again if asked.
"I'd do it for the experience, and to do my bit to help. You never know, we might need them to do the same for us one day," Mr Marsh said.
More than 200 people have been killed in the Victorian bushfires. Dunedin rural fire chief Graeme Still, who is Craig Still's brother, said 365,000ha of bushland had been burnt - an area about the size of Southland. Several towns were partially or completely destroyed.
Seven fires were still burning, he said, but no more New Zealand firefighters had been requested.
Australians were grateful for the New Zealanders' assistance, he said. Earlier this week, a group of tourists from Victoria had dropped off a koala soft toy and a large box of chocolates to say "Thank you".
