Wingham's Wallaby Joe Rural Fire Service captain Bob Pope is one such man.

Mr Pope and his crew were protecting properties at Mount George, inland from Taree on the NSW Mid-North Coast, as an intense bushfire swept through.

One of the houses the crew saved was owned by Brian English, but it reportedly didn't need much saving - it has been dubbed 'the fireproof house' by both Bob and the National Parks and Wildlife Service.

Mr English lives in Newcastle but spends a lot of time on his Mount George property.

"I knew that Friday night that the fire had gone through my place," the Novacastrian explained.

"I went up with a friend who's got bees on my place on Saturday morning. I was a bit apprehensive.

"When we got there we were absolutely amazed. The property is absolutely burnt through with hardly a blade of grass standing, but the shed and the house performed absolutely to design," Brian said.

"And then I met Bob Pope, who came on site, and he told me about his experience the day before, fighting it, and he said 'whoever designed this house is ('effing') brilliant. It is fireproof'."

Bob explained that by the time the crew got there, the flames were more than three-metres high.

"We got up to the house and the fire actually went past that quick we were only mopping up bits and pieces around the house. And I thought, 'geez. this is well designed'.

"We didn't have to do a lot," Mr Pope said.

After saving the shed, the next job was to save the bees.

"He had seven or eight bee hives. Poor little bastards, they were suffering with the smoke and everything so I thought, 'oh we're going to stop the fire burning the poor old bees'. They were trapped in their boxes," Mr Pope said.

The house was designed by Newcastle based architect Matt Hull and built in 2008 by local builder Mal Roimans.

Considerations of the impacts of bushfire were on the architect's mind when designing the building.

There is no exposed wood anywhere in the building, the house is hunkered down on the ground, and although the house is facing downhill and the owners wanted to take advantage of the view, a verandah or deck was foresaken for safety reasons.

"Instead of building a deck on the front of the house on the steepest part of the site, we split the building in half and put the verandah between the two living zones so that the house itself was the verandah," Matt Hull explained.

"With those sorts of design decisions in mind to minimise cost, minimise the impact on the site, hunker down onto the site itself, the building tends to nestle into the site and present less of a vulnerable underside or tall facade that would be vulnerable to flame attack."

Mal Roiman also made changes to the building that lessened the fire risk, by having concrete water tanks, piping that went under the ground to and from the tanks, metal screening, and changing the window design so the glass was heavier to make it more fireproof.

The main brief in the design of the house, however, was that it be self sufficient and passive solar.

What impressed Mr Pope was the corrugated iron cladding, the pebble surrounds, and a besser block retaining wall about 600-700mm off the house.

"Perfect. They did a perfect job," Mr Pope said.