Sell Or Stay? Australia's Fire Zone Experiment

Everyone who lived through Black Saturday remembers the heat and the wind that day in February 2009. The temperature soared to 115 degrees Fahrenheit — so hot it sucked the breath out of you, made your vision swim and your fingers swell. The wind blew in from the northwest, from the vast, arid Australian interior. Flags flew stiff. Fire danger was extreme.

Joe Milbourne was at home, reading a book on his couch with the air conditioning on and the curtains closed against the harsh February sun. The 59-year-old had retired early from his career as a security guard and had moved into a one-story house at the end of a cul-de-sac in Flowerdale, a small town in the wooded hills above Melbourne.

In the early evening, the lights suddenly turned off and the air conditioner cut out. No worries, Milbourne thought, the wind must have knocked out the power. He turned on a flashlight and kept reading. Then something caught his eye.

"Between the curtains was a red stripe," he remembers. "I thought, 'It's too early for sunset.' " He grabbed his hat and his walking stick and went outside to investigate.