Another blaze tore through his Newcastle West residence, destroying everything including his entire record collection which he had worked on for more than 50 years, his father's ashes and priceless photos.

But the sorrow and devastation the incidents caused have brought out the generosity of the community, which has touched Mr Dunn in a way he never imagined.

Mr Dunn first lost an assortment of records when The Edwards bar on Parry Street caught alight on June 20, 2018. Mr Dunn ran a small record store from the complex.

"All the stock was damaged - if it wasn't from fire, it was from the water," he said.

"It had taken me two and a half years to get it to the point where I could make a wage from it."

But it was another blaze that took hold in the building where he lived that almost broke Mr Dunn.

He was renting a bedsit above Ramani's Rug Gallery - his longest place of residence at almost 10 years - when it was engulfed in flames on July 27 this year. Both fires started after days of torrential rain, and Mr Dunn said firefighters had told him both were thought to be electrical-related.

Mr Dunn managed to escape the second inferno with the clothes on his back, but was forced to watch as everything he owned burned to the ground.

"When I saw the flames actually coming from up in my room, I'd just given up," he said.

Perhaps the most crushing loss was his entire record collection, which was worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, but also held sentimental value.

"I was holding onto them as sort of a superannuation," he said. "Due to my line of work I never had super. They were sort of a safety net. But it wasn't just a case of having them and selling them. It was something to keep me occupied, which they say is important when you get older.

"In a way I still haven't dealt with it. They were in storage for so long, I knew what I had but I didn't go through it.

"It's a loss that I can't quite comprehend yet. There were records I won on 2KO when I was 11 and 12. It's not like you can't get them again but these were memories of my life. It's that record - the way it looked, the way it sounded. It will never quite be the same."

While he is still dealing with the trauma of what happened, Mr Dunn said he had been buoyed by a fundraiser set up by friend, owner of The Edwards bar and former Silverchair bassist Chris Joannou and his wife Karissa.

The pair set up a GoFundMe page which has already raised more than $17,000. They've also given him a space to live while he gets back on his feet.

Mr Joannou and Mr Dunn first met more than 20 years ago, when Silverchair signed to Murmur, where Mr Dunn was working at the time.

Mr Joannou said while he related to Mr Dunn in losing The Edwards bar in the 2018 fire, he couldn't comprehend such a personal loss, especially twice.

"To have that devastation in a lifetime, let alone two years apart is just crushing," Mr Joannou said.

"Dunny has touched a lot of people along the way. Someone would come in to buy one record and he would spend an hour with them. We just wanted to give him a helping hand."

"It's so amazing what Chris and Karissa are doing," Mr Dunn said. "At first I didn't want them to do that. I've always been the helper being a band manager so it was difficult for me to accept.

"But the generosity has been amazing. The outpouring has just broken down my walls. People who I wouldn't have thought would give me the time of day have donated, people I haven't heard from in 20 years have donated. It's not something I expected."

To donate to the cause, visit www.gofundme.com/f/do-it-for-dunny.

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