"We are in a home provided by our insurance company now, but the first three were provided by the community."Whether it be clothes — I only had a pair of shoes, nothing else … so people were offering clothes, food and all kinds of stuff."
Despite losing everything, the rose grower of many decades returned to his scorched property and started tending to his garden in the hope there might be some survivors."They were growing at a rate of almost three-quarters of an inch a day," he said.Mr Atkins said his roses were a symbol of his community's resilience after the fires.
"I think my roses are a very good example to all of us, because they were all burnt right to the ground on the 31st of December," he said.
Hold the front page- it turns out that nature is resilient. Revelation