{"id":332035,"date":"2025-12-07T04:29:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-07T04:29:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/332035\/"},"modified":"2025-12-07T04:29:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T04:29:08","slug":"as-houses-burned-around-it-the-one-that-steve-built-stood-firm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/332035\/","title":{"rendered":"As houses burned around it, the one that Steve built stood firm"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A month ago, Steve Foskett handed his neighbours the keys to their new home.<\/p>\n<p>A builder and resident of the Central Coast\u2019s Koolewong, Foskett built a number of homes on the suburb\u2019s Nimbin Road which was ravaged by an out-of-control bushfire on Saturday night.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Steve Foskett and his dog Cali, who \u201cdidn\u2019t do any helping\u201d while they defended his home.\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/2ec70ad55d4da4ec6bac15ae6e9fb45be4196ae6.jpeg\" height=\"390\" width=\"584\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Steve Foskett and his dog Cali, who \u201cdidn\u2019t do any helping\u201d while they defended his home.Credit: Sitthixay Ditthavong<\/p>\n<p>At least 12 homes &#8211; some of which were built by Foskett &#8211; were destroyed by the fire, which was still burning on Sunday despite the cool change that came through overnight.<\/p>\n<p>While homes in the block around it was destroyed, Foskett\u2019s latest project survived the inferno that tore through the suburb thanks, he said, to Bushfire standard 29.<\/p>\n<p>Part of the state\u2019s strict building requirements that govern residential homes, Bushfire standard 29 governs homes in areas prone to fire. It requires homes to have walls made of non-combustible materials like concrete or bricks, ember shields on roofs, toughened glass in windows and metal mesh screens.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"A car destroyed by the fire in a garage built by Steve Foskett\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/5c730104db6270f9b5f8daca86bc28e7c32fcfc6.jpeg\" height=\"390\" width=\"584\" \/><\/p>\n<p>A car destroyed by the fire in a garage built by Steve FoskettCredit: Sitthixay Ditthavong<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was pretty pleased,\u201d said Foskett, speaking to the Herald on the fireground on Sunday morning.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI built that house four weeks ago to the new fire standards and it was the only one that survived.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Foskett said his neighbours were \u201cpretty happy\u201d when he called to say their home had survived.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A month ago, Steve Foskett handed his neighbours the keys to their new home. A builder and resident&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":332036,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-332035","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=332035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332035\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/332036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}