KNYSNA: Remembering the 2017 fires - Sherley Clarke, Knysna:

I am so pleased that you and your team have decided to do a follow-up on the devastating fires of 7 June 2017.

It's a day I will never forget and will forever have those flames, which engulfed and swallowed up our home, etched on my mind.

I wrote to you shortly after the fire, asking if you could publish our plea to have the plant pots that were standing at our front entrance, returned. Three of them survived and that is all we had left. They were stolen two days after the fire. We were in such shock that we didn't even think to put them somewhere safe.

Sadly, we have never seen them again.

We are a long way from rebuilding, but we will get there and that little piece of paradise out on the side of the hill on Phantom Road will always be home. After moving eight times after the fire, we are now living in a furnished apartment. This adds to a feeling of living "in transit" and I'm positive that, until we move back to our own rebuilt home, we will never truly feel settled.

My heart is still heavy with sadness when I see the many burnt-out shells of houses. Where have those people gone?

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