Bushfire survivor Phil Hine might have the world's most expensive temporary homelessness shelter - a Telsa Model 3.
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The Wytaliba resident, whose home since 1987 burned to the ground on November 8 in last year's deadly Kangawalla bushfire, has been living out of his $73,000 Tesla when it gets too cold to sleep in his tent or caravan ever since.
He can leave the heating on all night. With no internal combustion engine to produce carbon monoxide it's completely safe.
But with the debris of his home cleaned up, Mr Hine has recently become the first Wytaliba resident to win development approval to rebuild.
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Watching his old home cleared away to make way for the new place was a total relief, he said.
"It's devastating to keep seeing day after day the skeleton of a house which has been burnt out," he said
"It's just the way it is. I've had to live with it. I didn't want to move anywhere else. I knew [clean up] would take a long time."
He's one of the luckier bushfire victims in a tight-knit alternative community where several people are still homeless. They've had to endure the sub-zero temperatures of the mountains of the New England for weeks.
Other residents battle long-term emotional toll of the sudden wall of flame, which wrecked 79 homes, killed two and left the majority of the village in ruins. For months Wytaliba residents have lived alongside those ruins, something many residents said was an experience that prevented them moving on from the trauma of that terrible day.
Early in 2020, government vowed to pay to clear away the debris of the Black Summer bushfires - but despite months of hard work last week missed an initial June 30 deadline to finish the job.
Mayor Carol Sparks, who herself lost a home in Wytaliba in the fire last year, said the community was nonetheless full of praise for the contractor Laing O'Rourke, which she said had done its best to finish a hard job as quickly as humanly possible.
But as the community plans a "slow rebuild" of dozens of homes, many locals are still facing survivor's guilt.
"I think some people are still in shock, I really do," she said.
"They still haven't come to terms with what happened.
"Like the RFS crews; they were devastated that they couldn't help anyone that they had to get home to save their own lives. They're sad that they couldn't help people."
One of the symbols of Wytaliba's recovery is the village primary school, which was rebuilt by the state government in time for its students' first lesson of 2020.
Cr Sparks said the community has been inundated with thousands of donated books for the resurrected school library. A working bee helped laminate them all so they can be lent out.
Former local RFS Captain Kym Jermey led the defence of Wytaliba against repeated dangerous bushfires over a period of months.
The local brigade, strengthened by a handful of trucks from Reddestone Rural Fire Brigade, stood alone on November 8.
He said they're rebuilding the village with the same spirit of self-reliance - even to the point of taking a mentoring role for some of the people suffering the most.
"There's all sorts of emotions still going around," he said.
"It's up to some of us older people to try and set those guys straight and not to take it personally. I sit here in a house that survived, sure I had to fight for it. [But] I'm not in the situation where I lost everything I own. Our worlds are very, very different.
"I'm giving advice and taking to the boys and anyone who seems to be a bit off-keel with things. You don't have to be aggressive with them but you try to give them another perspective at least."
Wytaliba will be a different community after it's rebuilt, with the local council insisting on development approvals and fire ratings for the reconstruction of a community that was founded, in 1979, as a nudist commune. Most of the homes wrecked last year were not approved, and many locals may not be able to afford to build a house to standard, Mr Jermey said. On the other hand, the newly-enforced rules will make the community easier to defend from the next bushfire.
After 7 months of "camping" Phil Hine is preparing to be the first to restart his life. His new cabin should be installed by the first weeks of August, months earlier than he expected. It will likely be the first new home built in Wytaliba and will cost the last of his savings.
But for the last few weeks he has no longer had to spend spend cold nights sleeping in his high-tech electric vehicle, which he bought just weeks before the bushfire. A friend has lent him a cabin.
Losing your home is a massive job, he said.
"It's absolutely massive. My life is completely in disarray. I think I'm doing okay, I know I'm not normal, I don't feel normal.
"It puts you in disarray, everything's out of whack, trying to keep to a routine is difficult.
"If I'd still had a full time job there's no way I would have managed to keep that."
A spokesperson for Resilience NSW said the clean-up target of 2,800 properties by June 30 has blown out as extra homeowners signing up for help. As of July 20 more than 3,200 ruined properties have been cleaned up across the state.
In Wytaliba an initial estimate of 61 wrecked homes has increased to 79, including 16 cleared up by the NSW government before the appointment of contractor Laing O'Rourke.
"In Wytaliba, crews faced a number of challenges while accessing properties to commence clean-up, including swollen river crossings and a damaged bridge, however clean-up commenced shortly after these were addressed," the spokesperson said.
There are just 2 homes left to clean up, a job that should be completed by the end of next week, weather permitting.
