Michael and Jodie Koczwara's home was gutted in a bushfire that ripped through the Adelaide Hills, but they're well aware things could have been worse.
The couple, along with Michael's father, planned to stay and defend their Inglewood property when the alarm was raised on Friday.
But the danger ahead quickly dawned on them when their better-equipped neighbours made a hasty retreat.
Packing the bare essentials and their two dogs, they went to stay with Michael's grandmother.
Hours later, the house lay in ruins, a shed had exploded and their paddocks were burnt black.
Speaking at a bushfire relief centre in Golden Grove on Monday, the couple told AAP they were lucky to be alive.
"You start contemplating everything," Michael says.
"If we have a house at the end of the day but I don't have a wife or I don't have a dad, what's the point?"
Jodie said the couple were initially confident their well-maintained home would escape damage.
"But seeing what happened to the house, we know now that we would never have been able to take any cover anywhere," she said.
"We didn't have the skills either, to be honest. We've never fought fire."
Michael, a building surveyor, and Jodie, an admin assistant, both 29, said they didn't really believe they'd lost their home until they heard from police and saw the damage themselves.
Neighbours knew what had happened but couldn't bring themselves to deliver the bad news.
Like others who have lost their homes in the devastating blaze, Michael and Jodie plan to rebuild and start over again.
The couple are heartened by news that their sheep appear to have survived unscathed and hopeful of tracking down their two missing alpacas.
Much of what they lost will be replaceable but some items - like Jodie's wedding dress and Michael's university degree - are more painful to lose.
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