South-east Australia's wildlife and native flora have been dealt a major blow by the fires. Some species may have real difficulty recovering. This is true for the high country.

Given the impact of the 2003 wildfires in the mountains, these latest fires might be just too soon and too severe for some mountain species to recover. Alpine ash, for example, is killed by severe fire and has to grow again from seed. The new trees need 20 years before they reach seed-bearing age.

This is one of the biggest worries about climate change: the increased severity and frequency of extreme events like bushfire.

The ability to fight the fires in Kosciuszko has been gravely hampered by successive state governments repeatedly cutting National Parks and Wildlife Service staffing. Will federal failures to deal with climate change, emissions and renewables now be reversed in the fires' wake?

The Kosciuszko fires have had a major impact on the mountains' cultural heritage. In 2003 large numbers of historic huts were lost throughout the Alps and in the ACT the biggest mountain heritage loss was Mt Franklin Chalet.

A major change of policy in Kosciuszko saw several huts rebuilt after the fires, a sterling effort by parks staff and volunteers of the Kosciuszko Huts Association.

This time there have been more big losses. The historic gold-mining and skiing precinct of Kiandra was devastated just a few days ago. First established in 1859-60, the town saw gold mining over many decades and was the birthplace of Australian skiing.

But the latest fires have taken all of the remaining buildings. The stone-walled courthouse dating from the late 19th century, later turned into a ski lodge by Wally Reed in the 1940s and then expanded into an hotel run by Harvey Palfrey, was the major building left in the town. One of the guests in Palfrey's time was, believe it or not, Mick Jagger; the snow scenes in his Ned Kelly film were shot nearby.

Only a few years ago the parks service restored the courthouse section, in part informed by a conservation plan on which I worked with then Canberra architect Peter Freeman.

Visitors were able to follow a heritage trail around the former townsite too.

The courthouse is now gone. Also gone is Wolgal Ski Lodge dating from 1960 and also recently wonderfully restored by NPWS and volunteers, rented out as visitor accommodation.

Further up Pollocks Gully stood Pattinsons Cottage. Owned by the late Jim and Fanny Pattinson, it was a genuine Kiandra home. My wife Steph and I and heritage colleague David Scott had morning tea there with Jim and Fanny in 1991 during a heritage project. Former mountain stockman Herb Hain was with us and we all enjoyed tea and scones freshly baked in the oven by Fanny. Now Pattinsons is ashes too.

The sole other Kiandra building, Matthews Cottage, was also destroyed.

Meanwhile, the successor to Kiandra's ski story, nearby Mt Selwyn Resort, was hard hit by the fires and the buildings destroyed. A popular family ski centre in this northern part of the park, it was a contrast to the mega-resorts further south. The company has announced plans to rebuild.

A little further west, the Snowy Scheme town of Cabramurra lost half its buildings and Snowy Hydro workers have suffered great loss.

But there are positive stories rising from the fires. Park firefighters saved the Yarrangobilly Caves precinct. Here, stylish Caves House, dating from that period of government investment in cave tourism and run for years by generations of the Hoad family, had been restored for public use by the NPWS. The information building, previously the Hoad family home, was saved too.

Elsewhere, parks staff wrapped huts in fire-proof sheeting, bulldozed firebreaks around huts, back-burnt with incendiaries from the air, and fought hard on the ground. Some huts, like Boobee and Tantangara, survived when the fire ran out of steam or the wind changed.

Just how many huts have been lost will only be known once the conflagration is past its worst and parks staff can make proper assessments. We know that the lovely little Four Mile Hut south of Kiandra, built in 1937 by miner Bob Hughes, has gone.

I, like many other walkers and skiers, cherished a stop there, and we are all so lucky to have known this place while we had the opportunity. Volunteer caretakers spent countless hours looking after that hut over many years.

The rebuilding program that followed the 2003 conflagration might well be activated again. That program saw much-loved huts like Broken Dam (south of Kiandra,), Patons (near Tooma Dam), O'Keeffes (at the foot of Mt Jagungal), huts at Happy Jacks Plain, plus others, all rebuilt so that the historic story of the stockmen and women and others who used the original huts could continue to be told, and so that today's recreational bushwalkers and cross-country skiers could enjoy the ambience and shelter the huts so vitally provide.

While a rebuilt hut cannot be the original building, its social values for the community can and do continue. After the ashes, the places of the high country can live on. Some will live only in memory and photographs, but some will live again as structures in the landscape.

The mountains are, and will remain, a storied landscape.