Fire victims' reports 'distressing': Recovery agency boss

But the agency pushed back at suggestions the situation was unacceptable, insisting that although recovery "can never happen quick enough, it can't happen immediately".

Fronting a Senate inquiry earlier this month, South Coast residents and community and charity organisations described how people who had lost their homes during the Black Summer bushfires were still living in tents and caravans, with dozens on waiting lists for toilets, showers and water tanks.

One witness told the inquiry that the recovery process had been more traumatic than the fires themselves, largely due to the bureaucratic hurdles victims faced as they sought help.

Asked to respond to that evidence at a hearing in Parliament House on Wednesday, National Bushfire Recovery Agency boss Andrew Colvin said "you can't ... hear that evidence and not be distressed by it".

"It doesn't seem that anyone in Australia today should be living in those conditions," he said.

Mr Colvin then deferred to his deputy co-ordinator, Major-General Andrew Hocking, who explained that the process of helping victims was not straightforward, with different challenges for different land holders.

Major-General Hocking confirmed that temporary accommodation had been offered to all people who required it.

But some, he said, had rejected the offer because they wanted to remain on their land, including for reasons of wanting to tend to their stock or because "emotionally, that is where they wanted to be".

Those who remained on their land had the option to either live in temporary accommodation "pods" or, in some cases, caravans, he said.

Major-General Hocking said makeshift housing was "far from a perfect solution", citing problems bringing in water and disposing of sewage onto rural properties.

"This can never happen quick enough, but it can't happen immediately," he said of the process of rebuilding in the wake of a disaster.

Labor senator Tim Ayres, who chairs the committee, accepted the process was complex, but suggested the situation was unacceptable given more than 14 months had passed since fires ripped through the NSW South Coast.

In response, Mr Colvin said the agency would follow up with the individuals who provided evidence.

The agency met with one person earlier this week, he said.

"We want to take the evidence that you were given and actually point it down to who is the person ... that is in this situation so we can address the specificity of the need," he said.

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