Reporter Jake Saulwick is in Mt Victoria where he found a resident counting his blessings among the ruins of his home:

Laurie Eades stands on the charred ruins of his four-bedroom Mt Victoria home, running his hand across an arrow-head older than the Persian Empire.



"This is 1600-2000 BC from Luristan - that's pre-Persia," says Eades. "The Persian Empire really didn't get going until Darius 1 - that was 500 BC."



Eades, who is only now returning to himself having been numb for three days since the family home he built was razed last Thursday, 10 minutes after his children evacuated it, then picks up a silver Roman ear-ring.



"There's something that really amazes me. It is still intact. I was amazed it wasn't molten silver," he says.



Eades, an electrician, knows how to count his blessings and his antiquities. He was in Sydney last Thursday on a training course when he heard on the radio that fire was threatening Mt Victoria, where he was lived for 30 years.



He called his adult son and daughter, who were at home. Within 10 minutes, the police arrived to evacuate them. Minutes after that, the fire roared up the street, St Georges Parade, claiming eight houses out of 13.



Eades returned soon after to find his house turned to rubble. But an Ancient Greek terracotta urn, one of the fruits of his relic-collecting hobby, was unscathed. Copper coins from Rome, Moronia in Greece, the Byzantine Empire also survived, though charred.

More to come in tomorrow's Sydney Morning Herald.