Pets missing, nothing left: Tara family’s heartbreaking return after fire

The Windsor family left their Queensland home with just a few items of clothing. Now they’re scouring what’s left – charred remains and rubble.

A young mum has told of her devastation of returning to her home after it was destroyed by bushfires, only to be missing their cats, and everything they own including her son’s recent birthday presents.

Sarah Windsor said when they evacuated last week with some of their clothes, they never expected to return to nothing.

On Tuesday, the family of five went through charred belongings only to find nothing salvageable.

“Never did we think we’d never have a home to come to,” Ms Windsor said.

“We got the phone call ... he said ‘look the good news is we’ve got out alive, the bad news is there’s nothing left’.

“We knew we were coming back to nothing but to actually see it was just numbing.”

Sarah Windsor and her kids, salvaging items from their burnt-out home lost in the Tara fires. Picture: Liam Kidston

Ms Windsor said her 12-year-old son Alex, whose birthday was the week before, “didn’t cope very well” after everything was destroyed including his presents.

“He tried giving me his pocket money so we could come home,” she said

“Dean, the five-year-old, he doesn’t like being out here because it’s broken.”

Alex told The Courier-Mail he wasn’t happy about what happened but he had to move on.

“Things happen in life, you can’t stop them,” he said.

“The only thing that counts is we are still alive, our house might not be alive but we are.”

Alex Windsor, 11, with his burnt bike. Picture: Liam Kidston

Ms Windsor said she had been struggling with the emotions herself.

“It’s really all over the place. One minute I’m like okay well this is what we’ve got to do, we are out, we’ve got to work on starting out fresh again,” she said.

“But the next minute I’m in tears because everything’s gone. It’s really a mix of all over the place emotions.

“We went to try and find some clothes from the shops, just walking through the clothing aisle I broke, because I wanted to come home and get my clothes and the boys wanted to come home and get their toys.”

What's left of the family home.

Ms Windsor said she was also concerned about her cats.

“We’ve got two dogs, we were able to get them in the car,” she said.

“All the cats scattered, we had not even a week-old baby kittens, we were lucky to get them in a box, and we took them to Dalby and they’re now safe.

“We’ve had one cat come home but we are still missing four of them.

“They were very cuddly cats so I don’t know whether they’re still out hiding or they’re gone.

Sarah Windsor in her burnt-out house. Picture: Liam Kidston

“I’m hoping (they’re still out there), we’ve been told of a few places that have picked up cats from the affected areas so we are going to check it out and see if we have any luck finding them.”

Ms Windsor said while it was a challenging time for her, she was blessed with amazing family members.

“They’ve bought us a caravan which we are going to set up and clear a spot and camp it out until we can rebuild and not give it up,” she said.

A GoFundMe campaign has been launched to financially assist the family.

Sarah and Graham Windsor with children Kyle, 12, Alex, 11, and Dean, 5. Picture: Liam Kidston