Tales of heroism emerge from New South Wales' searing inferno Paul Standen returns to the ruins of his Winmalee house. Larraine Woodcroft's husband Don is recovering in hospital after fighting the fire. BATTLE-weary Ashley More, 15, was helping defend her besieged town when she heard her own home had been destroyed by the inferno. The teen was helping out at the Winmalee Rural Fire Service headquarters as firefighters shuttled back and forth from the raging fire front. "I kept wondering about our house, because I knew things were bad in Emma Parade," she said. But I had to keep helping out here. A bit later, Dad rang me and said, 'The house is gone'. The neighbours' are all gone too. There's nothing left," Ashley said. It's awful what happened to my home, but I wouldn't have done anything differently. I don't regret helping other people on Thursday afternoon. "Aussie spirit" was the only thing keeping Winmalee man Paul Standen on his feet. A wall of flames levelled his home. Mr Standen said he had no warning before the ravening fire front swept across his backyard. "This country may be harsh but the people are unbelievable," he said, overwhelmed by the generosity on show. "You don't realise how much good there is in this country until you are in the middle of a disaster," hesaid. My phone has been going crazy with text messages from friends asking me what I need after they heard what had happened to my place. Tales of courage emerged from the ashes as residents counted the cost of the destruction. Larraine Woodcroft, 64, praised her husband, Don, who pitted himself against the fierce flames with nothing but a garden hose to halt the onslaught. He grabbed a hose and stood at the back fighting it, and fighting it, all by himself. "There was nothing he could do, but he didn't give up until he absolutely had to," she said. When I called him and asked him where he was, he said he was sitting in the gutter with blisters all over his face and second degree burns on his body from trying to protect the house. Her heroic husband was recovering yesterday in Concord Hospital in a stable condition, his injuries the scars of a David-and-Goliath battle no man could win.