Jarrod McInnes spent Tuesday staring out the window of his primary school watching his dad fight to save their house from a wall of fire.
At the same time, the eight-year-old saw his new home - the one his father was about to buy just across the road - burn to the ground.
"I was a little bit scared because I was sort of thinking we were going to be double homeless," the schoolboy tells AAP in the fire-ravaged NSW town of Rappville.
"Dad told me to go to the school. I was watching, going back and forth, that window, then out that door, then back to that window and then back out the door.
"There was one fire on one side, and then there was another fire at the back and I could see my dad. I feel lucky now because we still have our house - somewhere to sleep."
Jarrod's dad Kam McInnes should have been at the bank this week, finalising a loan for the new place opposite his and the school, but there's no need for that now.
Instead he spent Thursday keeping a close watch on spot fires that continue to burn around the house he managed to save, first with hoses and then, after the power went, with water he bucketed out of his spa.
"I had to fight for it, that's for sure," he tells AAP. "But I'm alive."
Australian Associated Press
