Clarence home owner and past fire fighter Paul Sammut, his wife and son stayed behind to protect their home from the Gospers Mountain bushfire and found themselves in the heat of it all.

"I had kind of prepared the place for it, put sprinklers on the roof, got fire hoses ready, but our next door neighbour had trees right up to our house so that was an issue," he said.

"So leading up to the fire, I ran my family through a fire drill every few days just to make sure that they knew exactly what their role was."

According to Mr Sammut there was no warning from officials that the fire was nearing.

"I could hear the fire coming, that's how I got everyone to their post basically," he said.

"I said 'can you hear that noise?' and they went 'what noise?' but if you stopped you could hear a rocket jet and I said 'that's fire, coming straight for us, so get to your post now' and within a few seconds that fire was upon us."

Mr Sammut said that the fire came at them from all sorts of directions, and unfortunately went through the bush that led to his house.

"So I basically stayed on the fire front and I was engulfed with flames, but I had my son being covered by a shed just pointing the hose at me, to basically keep me from burning," he said.

"Once the bush was a little bit cooler I started checking the house, I had my wife right behind the house so that she was completely protected, but her role was to make sure there wasn't any flames happening on the house itself."

With 25 years experience in the police and as a past fire fighter, Mr Sammut believed his training is what kept him calm in that situation.

"I was on fire, I've got overalls that are burnt, it really is like the movies you are patting yourself trying to put the flames out but it was fine," he said.

Once Mr Sammut could breathe again he went to check his sheds.

The sheds were alight.

"My son was busy putting out spot fires around the garden and you know every smoke detector we had on the property was going off, going crazy," he said.

"I had a few sheds with collectors cars in them, one of the sheds which caught fire had three cars in it on fire so I couldn't do anything with that, that just got out of control and I couldn't save them.

"Another shed with another car in it was on fire but I managed to get that out before the car actually burnt."

Mr Sammut's main shed with over half a million dollars worth of collectables inside also caught fire.

"While I was cooling the outside, I got my son to squirt water through the doorway, towards the fire and we managed to put that out but yeah, we lost two sheds, a number of cars, property fences," he said.

"We managed to save the house though, that's that's the main thing."

"The unfortunate part and I guess it's just the system the way it worked, we had Fire Rescue from Sydney come up," Mr Sammut said.

"They're inexperienced, other than putting car fires out and pulling people out of cars they really had no idea about fires."

According to Mr Sammut when they turned up, they pulled out a hose that was no better than a garden hose.

"So basically the captain that was with them absolutely panicked, said "this is too much for us, we're out of here, you're doing a great job", patted me on the shoulder and just bolted," he said.

"That was the end of them."

So in a nutshell, the family was on their own.

"Basically we fought it ourselves, and those that remained did well to save what they could, actually three houses next door burnt to the ground," he said.

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Mr Sammut said that it was "definite" that had his family left, they would have no house to come back to.

"The guy from Fire and Rescue said "you have no hope in saving this" and that was his parting gesture, him running," he said.

"And truly, if we weren't there, we would have came back to nothing, we would have came back to rubble."

Mr Sammut told the heartbreaking story of his friend who lived up the road and fought until he had no more energy.

"He went inside his house and just sat there, cracked open a beer and waited to die," he said.

"He said that 'well, if this is where I'm dying I'm having a beer', so he sat down and waited to die, but by that time the fire brigade knocked on his door he got another lease on life.

"But yeah, that's just one of the things that happened because, yeah, the support wasn't there."

The 63-year-old, has been fighting fires since his teenage years and said in all his time he had never seen anything like this.

"This was one of the worst things I've ever seen, it just came from everywhere and that was the problem, it just kept changing," he said.

Family members of Mr Sammut, also had a tough time hearing the reports come over the radio.

"Basically the reports said that Clarence had been wiped out, so you know, as far as family goes it was horrendous for them to listen to the radio reports because that was what they were hearing," he said.

"We had family members down in Hartley and if they looked up here all they could see was a big fireball, so they said they actually believed that's what happened.

"When that comes over the radio and they can't get hold of us because there was no communication, they were living in a bit of a state as well."

With a lot of mixed signals on whether the fire was coming or not coming, Mr Sammut said even he had doubts about whether it would arrive.

"But preparation is extremely important and I think people just became complacent," he said.

"I made sure we did our fire drill and I kept the pumps primed and if it did hit we would be ready.

"Normally when a fire front hits, you know what direction it's coming in, but this fire came from everywhere and that's why people lost their places or they were ill prepared.

"I've got to say, even my own preparation wasn't the best, now that I'm rebuilding."

Mr Sammut said a lot of changes would be happening at his property.

"We are putting more water around, doing more sprinklers, getting a bit more organised," he said.

Mr Sammut went through the Commonwealth Bank for his insurance and said they had been nothing but fantastic.

"They've helped out where they could, it's been the repairers that were an issue, they've been the worst out of this whole ordeal and I've had a gutful where I've said that's enough I'll do it myself," he said.

Financially, Mr Sammut and his family are close to $100,000 out of pocket.

"A lot of the cars weren't registered so I couldn't insure them, and because I couldn't get insurance, of course no one would cover them," he said.

"Then there is landscaping and all that sort of stuff, but it's just one of those things unfortunately."

Mr Sammut couldn't help but praise Origin and Endeavour Energy who worked day and night to restore power to the town.

"They were out changing poles, everything, and within three week we had power again, they really went beyond good service to get us going again up here," he said.

Telstra on the other hand have taken five and a half months to restore their connection.

"They were really bad, and they sent us a bill every month despite us not having a service, and they would tell us it had been repaired, but it hadn't, and I know some places that still have no service," he said.

According to Mr Sammut a lot of residents have sold up and gone and a few others have been tidying and are going to sell up.

"The fire scared them too much and a lot have lost everything so they have decided they are not going to live in Clarence," he said.

"But once repairs happen and everything gets back to normal, it's going to be a really beautiful area, people are rebuilding, it's neat and tidy, it has changed, it's nothing like it used to be, not just the landscape but the whole outlook is changing," he said.

While the RFS has received a lot of praise and credit, deservedly, there were also regular civilians who put their lives on the line to save their livelihood.

"I'm complimenting my family and those who stayed around the area, they were overwhelmed with what happened and with disappointing assistance to say the least, the residents did an incredible job," he said.

"If the residents can stay and fight, it would have been nice for the fire crews to stay and fight, I understand they are volunteers, but there are paid members among them, but they just weren't prepared."

Majority of the residents who stayed back and fought, saved their houses.

"I'd do it all over again if I had to," he said.

Mr Sammut said that the people in Clarence really came together during that horrific time.

"Once I managed to get our place under control, I had an old Ute with a 1000 litre tank on it, so I used that to put out spot fires and help a neighbour put out a fire on their container which contained furniture," he said.

"We really pulled together as a community, to help each other out when we could."

One thing that Mr Sammut thinks is very important is that it should be up to the individual if they want to stay during a disaster like that, "only if they are properly prepared of course".

"Because, if we were all evacuated, Clarence would have been wiped out," he said.

"Everyone needs a big pat on the back for their efforts because I think the residents really are the heroes of this area."