In an industry filled with celebrities and models, where airbrushing even the tiniest aesthetic flaw takes place, the featuring of Turia Pitt on the cover of the July issue of Australian Women’s Weekly is being called a game-changer.

Pitt was caught in a brushfire while participating in an ultramarathon in Australia, leaving her with severe burns over 65 percent of her body, according to MTV Style. After doctors gave her a minimal initial chance of survival, she spent 864 days in a hospital, undergoing more than 100 surgeries to repair the damage done.

Since then, she’s ridden a bicycle from Sydney to Uluru, a distance of 1,675 miles, swam a 20k, and walked the Great Wall of China, all in order to raise money for Interplast, a reconstructive surgery charity that is staffed with volunteer health professionals who provide free surgical treatment for patients who wouldn’t be able to afford care otherwise.

Inspirational? That doesn’t even cut it.

“Being on the cover of The Australian Women’s Weekly is a huge honour,” Pitt told Australian Women’s Weekly. “I feel very humbled. For me, it sends the message that confidence equals beauty. There are a lot of women out there who are so beautiful but don’t have the confidence, and that’s what gets you over the line.”

“Any attempt to describe the magic and beauty of Turia seems to get lost in platitudes and clichés,” Australian Women’s Weekly editor-in-chief Helen McCabe said. “Yet I have never met a more remarkable person.”

Pitt notes, “It’s strange, because I don’t really see that I’m that inspiring. I’m just living my life to the fullest, which is what everyone should do.”

Pitt has been back to Kimberley to meet the people who saved her life: the helicopter pilot, the nurses, the paramedics. But rather than go back to the gorge where she was trapped by the fire, she participated in a 20k swim, as part of a team event.

“I’d way rather do something that’s fun, rather than going back to a negative moment in my memory,” she said. “It’s like, if you have a nightmare, do you want to have that nightmare again? I’ve already got closure. I’ve moved on.”

Image via YouTube