How We Rebuilt Our Tiny Town From The Ashes

After a devastating bushfire, these inspiring locals rallied together to rebuild their homes and livelihoods from the ashes.

Orange flames went as far as the eye could see as they erupted across the tiny town of Uarbry near Dunedoo in the NSW Central West. As burning air seared Graham Goodman’s lungs, he desperately fought with all his might to extinguish the inferno.

While he battled selflessly to save his neighbours’ properties a message came over the radio from his truck. “They said I’d lost everything – the two houses on my property, including the home I lived in and grew up in,” the veteran firefighter of 50 years tells Woman’s Day.

HEARTBREAKING SIGHT

Meanwhile just minutes away Chris, 41, and Sam WentworthBrown, 39, were standing across the road from their home when a cruel wind change diverted the unforgiving flames and razed their home in front of their eyes.

It was a hellish scene, with other locals Ruth Withers and her partner Steven White grabbing their beloved dogs and fleeing the firestorm but sadly losing their residence.

They were just three of a dozen heartbroken local families whose homes were destroyed on that fateful Sunday morning in 2017 when fire wiped out the entire rural town.