Five hours fighting a wall of flame

Daniel Provost tears up when recalling the battle to tame the “wall of fire” that roared over his family’s home for five hours.

Emotional local resident of Thrumpster Daniel Provost at his property outside of Port Macquarie. Picture: Jane Dempster/The Australian.

Daniel Provost tears up when ­recalling the battle to tame the “wall of fire” that roared over his family’s home for five hours in the dark of Saturday morning.

“We didn’t know how bad it was going to get. It feels like we’ve gone through the apocalypse,” Mr Provost said.

He spent Friday afternoon ushering 30 horses from his Thrumpster property to a stable in Port Macquarie, about 10km away, aided by neighbours.

His wife and children had fled to her parents’ home in Port Macquarie ahead of the fires, and Mr Provost had spent $1000 carting in water to defend his home.

The Provost family’s house was “looking fine”, when the direction and ferocity of the wind changed about 10pm on Friday night.

A team of firefighters, who were driving past his property, rushed to his home, hooked their hose up to his water tank, and guided the fire over and around his property for the next five hours.

An out of control bushfire threatens Johns River on the NSW mid north coast. Picture Nathan Edwards.

“I hugged every one of those fireys when they left at 3am, because they saved my kid’s home,” he said.

While he didn’t expect the weekend’s fires to be so severe, Mr Provost knew that after a year with no significant rain, his parched land, normally lush and tropical, would be particularly susceptible to bushfires. “There’s an issue with the climate, we’re just not getting any rain,” he said.

On Sunday morning, as smoke was still billowing from hollowed trees in his backyard, Mr Provost was preparing his property ahead of the “catastrophic” danger predicted on Tuesday.

His home now relies on a portable generator, donated by a rental company, after the electrical box exploded on Saturday.

Neighbours have begun dropping off food to sustain him as he spends every daylight hour removing hazards and preparing his home for Tuesday. “The way our community is coming together … family and friends, calling in the troops,’’ he said.

Mr Provost knows his story is a lucky one, largely thanks to the water at his home.

“I know it was hard for the firefighters, I got a sense they felt bad they couldn’t help more people. But if there’s no water they can’t do anything.” he said.

About 60km away in the town of Bobin, Kim MacDonald held a piece of her late father’s shattered ashtray in one hand as she searched the rubble of her house for its remaining pieces.

The 53-year-old made headlines over the weekend with her story of survival, sheltering in a creek under a wet blanket with her dogs as homes above her burned.

On Sunday, her sister Amanda and friend Claire, who travelled from Sydney the night before, helped her trawl through the rubble of her former home, an experience a friend and volunteer SES counsellor said was an important part of the grieving process.

“I don’t think I want to salvage anything, it’s too soul destroying,” Ms MacDonald said as she found another chunk of the ashtray.

“All my grandparents’ furniture and parents’ belongings were in the house. It’s like when somebody dies, you have to grieve. Nobody has died but I had such a connection with them here. It’s like you’ve lost the connection.”

At Johns River, between Port Macquarie and Taree, the road to the burnt out home where the body of Julie Fletcher was found on Saturday afternoon was still closed off.