A blanket of thick smoke descended on the little island, weeks after it had travelled to our Kiwi cousins in New Zealand.

Tasmania's air quality is pretty special - you only have to leave the island and spend any amount of time in another state or country to physically taste the difference when you walk off the plane on your arrival back in the state.

The large smoke plumes blanketed Launceston and it crept along to cover the entire state, earning Tasmania its first hazardous air quality warning of the summer season. The smoke lasted most the morning and into the afternoon, but by 3pm a southwesterly front pushed the smoke back from whence it came.

While it seems we only got a small taste of the smoke that has blanketed Sydney, Canberra and all the towns in between affected by fires, it brought home the magnitude of what firefighters and volunteers are contending with. Tasmania is experiencing its own bushfire season, with the Tasmania Fire Service expending its efforts at Fingal on Saturday, it is also just a taste of the broader crisis that has and is still unfolding.

Many towns have been evacuated, with lives and homes lost to many raging inferno monsters. It takes a community to bounce back from this kind of catastrophe, because without the collective, dealing with this kind of trauma can be awfully isolating.

That community spirit is alive and well in Tasmania, as it is in the many small, rural towns who have been affected by bushfires.

Volunteers of all persuasions are stopping to help firefighters in any way they can, whether its with time, food, drinks, water - or even just a chat.

It is through these hard times that we bond together, not just as states but as a country, bound together by the smoke and the ash.

And so, as we deal with our own fires, we want to send a message to our mainland brothers and sisters in those communities right now - we are standing with you.