Six years on from the Mount Victoria bush-fire

Six years on from a ferocious fire that destroyed half of the homes in the Blue Mountains' St Georges Parade, just one charred block has been built upon by new owners. Get behind the charities that are supporting our bushfire affected communities

Every resident who lost their home ran from the fire and never returned.

"The fire front came through incredibly quickly, and basically those that hadn't left prior to the fire getting there had to run for their lives," Rolley Clarke said, who's self-built home survived the Blue Mountains blaze.

"Half the population of the street just went after that one hour of fire and most of them never came back."

And while Mr Clarke still lives in St Georges Parade, Simon Crosbie never returned.

"I never went back to Mount Victoria to live," Mr Crosbie said, who lost everything except for his favorite iron frying pan.

"For me, I was never comfortable going back there to see if any little bits and pieces had survived."

"The total finality of it... there's nothing. You have to start again," he said.

The 2013 fires - described as the worst natural disaster in Blue Mountains history - led the New South Wales government to declare a state of emergency.

Destroying 210 homes, the fires burned on three fronts: Linksview Road, State Mine, and Mount York Road - which was the blaze that would, within an hour of its inception, destroy around 50 percent of the homes on St George's parade.

"Prior to the fire there were about 10 houses in the street and five of them were completely burnt to the ground," Mr Clarke said.

"Of those, none have been rebuilt by the owners that had them prior to the fire, and only one of the blocks of land that had a house on it has been built on since the fire... and this is six years later."

Produced by: Dayvis Heyne and Harriet Tatham

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