In the smouldering wreckage of the catastrophic black summer bushfires, a small group of crochet lovers set out to save the world one woollen nest at a time.
Since then, animals displaced by flooding in Lismore, NSW and by massive wildfires in Western Australia's south-west have snuggled into the soft homes created by their hooked needles drawing yarn into intertwined loops.
Calling themselves the Woolly Wildlife Warriors, the loose group of women, men and children based in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney crochet pouches, nests, and "palaces" for injured wildlife.
"Even as the world burns around you and you just sit and watch Netflix, you can still crochet," Warriors volunteer Anne Fitzgerald said.
"The threat of extinction is ever present and so we just need to adapt."
Bound by knots in wool
The Warriors like to keep their group informal. They have no official coordinator and callouts for new nests and possum palaces are limited to a Facebook page and chat.
"We don't need a constitution; we've got knots in wool," Ms Fitzgerald said at the group's first widely-advertised meeting at the 20 Mile Hollow cafe in Woodford in the mid-Mountains.
"We're here today to share what we have learned with each other so that we become more useful to the creatures."
Crochet for young and old
Among the Warriors gathered were Maddie Brett-Hall, 15, and her 13-year-old sister, Luka.
"When I first started crochet it seemed really daunting," Maddie said on July 16. In the Warriors, she's now one of the teachers.
Ms Fitzgerald said it took about eight hours to crochet a "palace" - a snug, cylinder-shaped home with a roof and access window that replicates a tree hollow in the wild.
A small crocheted nest used for birds, pygmy possums, sugar gliders and feathertail gliders can take anywhere between one and three hours to complete.
"[The group was created] for people who didn't know how to sew, but they could crochet," Ms Fitzgerald said.
"It helps to deal with climate grief too."
Palaces for all
Dozens of the woollen homes have been sent to natural disaster zones around Australia.
But most of the Warriors' work is put to use by local wildlife rescuers as they help nurse sick and injured native birds and animals back to health in the World Heritage-listed national park.
"The number one animal we get in the Blue Mountains into care with WIRES is the brushtail possum," WIRES NSW local branch coordinator Tracy Burgess said.
"We get about 800 brushtail possums into care a year. Some of those don't survive; some of those need to be euthanised."
About 100 of those would be babies.
"Mum's been hit by a car, mum's been attacked by a dog - for whatever reason mum is no longer there and so the baby has to be raised," she said.
Wildlife take a load off
It's like a holiday for the marsupials as they heal.
"When they come into care you can almost see them like they've gone into a B&B or something and they just relax," Ms Burgess said.
"There's no predators after them. They've got room service from me twice a day, I'm cleaning the cage, I'm giving them foliage; they don't have to worry about finding food, they don't have to worry about being attacked."
But vulnerable birds outnumbered even the possums.
"If you group all the birds together - because we've got a lot of bird species - birds would actually be our number one," Ms Burgess said.
"We get 1100 birds a year ... again about 100 of those would be baby birds that have fallen out of nests and we can't find the parents."
Eastern grey kangaroos, swamp wallabies, wombats, bandicoots, and the odd echidna are also sent their way.
But the human helpers get something out of it, too.
"There really is something about making something out of fibre which reaches back in time," Ms Fitzgerald said.
If you'd like to get involved with the Woolly Wildlife Warriors email Anne Fitzgerald: anneinorbit@gmail.com