Mr Nash had watched as the blaze jumped the highway and raced up his street. His horse, Waynere Oaks Agent, was due to compete in the regional show that day but it had been cancelled due to heat. By mid-afternoon, Mr Nash was grateful just to have his life.

"When you can read the number on the orange helicopters, you know it's close," Mr Nash said in the stables at the Royal Easter Show yesterday.

This year's show has become a time of renewal for competitors, say the voices in the sheds, after a year that began with drought, flood and fire. This is the first normal event for some Victorian people and their animals. Others are not there, having perished in the fires.

"I'm sort of using this as a new beginning," said Jenny Cooper, whose house and horses were saved but property destroyed on February 7. "I've been so looking forward to coming here. This is the new point for me. Nothing bad can happen."

Mrs Cooper was at the show as a strapper. She has Australian stock horses but did not bring them to Sydney.

One had put his leg through a burnt-out fence and was still recovering. Others were charred by embers. A mare's udder was so burnt she could no longer feed her foal.

"On the day when it all happened, it got to the point I had forgotten about the horses. I though I was going to die at one stage," Mrs Cooper said. "I feel really guilty because I didn't lose my horses. Other people lost their horses."

This year, more than most, the show was a chance for farmers to escape difficulties in their lives, said the chief executive of the Royal Agricultural Society of NSW, Peter King.

"I think they enjoy the fact they can get away from some of the hardship they endure on the land and just come to the city and get to enjoy themselves," Mr King said. "It is a show family. There are a lot of people who can share experiences like that. That's a wonderful thing happening in the sheds."

Mr Nash's partner, Emma South, said people were using the show to talk about what they had lost in the fires. Particularly country men, who do not talk very much. "It's positive, because everyone's gone through the whole experience."