THE Morrow family, who fled Marysville with nothing, have been overwhelmed by the support of Hepburn Shire residents.
The family, Bruce, his wife Jinhee and their two daughters, Lily, six, and Amy, 22 months, are now living in temporary accommodation in Daylesford.
They have been inundated with gifts of furniture, clothing, toys, linen, money and even the four-month loan of a second car.
Lily has enrolled at Daylesford Primary School and the family is determined to make Daylesford its new home.
The owners of Marysville Getaways, Mr and Mrs Morrow spoke on Friday of their terrifying ordeal - with the Black Saturday fires consuming every one of their 12 holiday rental properties along with their own home.
They were not insured and are now destitute.
Mr Morrow said that, like many others, the family had been caught unawares on Saturday afternoon.
"We were eating dinner, it was about 6pm, and the electricity had gone about 5.30pm so we had no television, no radio - and the mobile phones were out too," he said.
"I kept looking out all the time but couldn't see anything and we just thought someone would come and tell us if we had to leave.
"But at the end of our meal I stuck my head outside the door and heard a roaring noise - I knew from the sound that it wasn't a fire we could fight with a bucket and hose."
The couple literally grabbed a child each, jumped in the car and drove.
"I was wearing shorts and a T-shirt and didn't even have my wallet because, in my mind, I was always going to drop Jinhee and the kids off at a muster point and go back," Mr Morrow said.
But while the family initially made its way to the town's golf club they soon realised they had to keep going.
"It was pretty scary, we were driving for a long time, and for about an hour we didn't know where we were heading," Mr Morrow said.
"The police in Yea were all confused and there weren't many cars around - Lily knew how worried we were - she's having counselling for anxiety now.
"And while we were driving later that night, about 11.30pm, we heard on the ABC that there was no asset loss in Marysville - but we'd already seen it."
Mr Morrow, whose father Les Morrow is the treasurer of the Daylesford & District Business Group, said the family was now just taking life "day by day".
"Getting a permanent house now is the number-one priority," he said.
"We have got to take a breath and adjust ourselves to our new life.
"But people here have been fantastic - there's been a huge response, nearly all from locals, with people just pulling up with trailer loads of goods for us."
Mr Morrow said the family had started to receive government help and had registered for Newstart benefits through Centrelink.
"We are just taking each day as it comes," he said.
"We just have to keep busy and try not to think about things too much.
"And with Lily already going to school we just want to settle in."
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