Surveying the burned-out wreckage of his French villa, Georgie Schmid shakes his head solemnly as he recalls the three-hour battle to save his home from the flames.
He had seen the inferno coming as it tore mercilessly through pine forests behind the property.
Grabbing garden hoses and switching on the garden sprinkler system, Georgie, his brother and a friend who lived nearby, joined four firefighters in trying to keep the fire at bay.
After two hours, it looked as though they had been successful as the flames died down and started to flicker away in the opposite direction until the wind picked up,
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