Firefighter leaves touching note to homeowner

A homeowner who thought he had "lost everything" in the Victorian bushfires was left humbled after finding a note from volunteer firefighters who saved his property that read: "We did the best we could".

Neil Hardman's home sat right in the path of the mammoth Mickleham-Kilmore fire, the state's largest.

Fearing the worst, Mr Hardman evacuated his property only to return on Tuesday to find that his home had been spared from the flames.

In the outlying ash, Mr Hardman found a note from the volunteer firefighters who risked their lives to save his property, apologising that they had not been able to find and rescue his horses.

The note, from Country Fire Authority firefighter, Frank Amoroso, 38, was titled: "We fought hard!

"We did the best we could… put out fire in house and moved your car. Could not find horses, sorry," the note read.

Mr Amoroso, who has been with the CFA for 25 years, told ninemsn that his team battled the odds and risked their lives to rescue Mr Hardman's home.

"We had only half a tank of water left, so we were limited to what we could and couldn't do," Mr Amoroso said.

"We went in and I had to physically pull the wall apart. Then we ran out of water and had to call in reinforcement from the NSW teams," he said.

After reinforcements arrived, the men managed to gain the upper hand on the house fire only to be dealt a devastating blow when they emerged to find Mr Hardman's shed had burned to the ground.

Surrounded by fire, the team had to move fast and Mr Amoroso said they were beginning to make tracks to the next fire when he noticed something sitting in the back seat of a car parked on the property.

"I saw an envelope and pen sitting there so I quickly jotted something down," Mr Amoroso said. "It's the first time I've ever done something like this. You like to let people know that you did what you could you. We're firefighters, we have hearts and we don't like to see people lose their homes."

Mr Harding, who is yet to come face-to-face with the man who saved his home from ruin, said that he is now considering moving from the area.

"We've been here 12 years and you know, you sit here and think, 'This is never going to happen to me and never going to happen to us,' and Mother Nature has its own way of finding a result," he said.

Source: ABC

Author: Natasha Lee, Approving editor: Nick Pearson