On February 7 last year more than 170 people, including 14 in the Yarra Ranges, died in the fires.

Yarra Glen resident Gareth Jones-Roberts was among them. The 48 year old was on his way to his parents' Mt Wise Road home after buying fuel for the generator when his car hit a firewall, lost control and crashed into a concrete culvert on the corner of Melba Highway and Symond Street. The car immediately went up in flames.

Speaking to the Journal last week, Mr Jones-Roberts' parents, Gareth snr and Norma Jones-Roberts, said it had been a terrible year.

"I feel very sorry for anyone who was involved, really," Mrs Jones-Roberts said. "You think about all the people who had this terrible, terrible thing come into their lives.

"You suddenly realise your loss. You realise none of the houses are coming back, none of the objects you had or the packets of photographs, none of those are coming back, and also none of your children that you've lost, your husbands, your wives, your sisters, your brothers.

"All of those people are gone and they're not coming back and it's just so hard to imagine."

Mr Jones-Roberts said it had been very hard to go through his son's personal belongings but they had received a lot of help from two case managers, "two extraordinary people".

"They help you handle the practicalities. Our brains have been scrambled, and our memories are not good. We are having quite regular break-downs. They can just happen, they can come from nowhere."

Every day, the couple visit the cemetery where their son was buried.

Mrs Jones-Roberts said she was still finding it hard to come to terms with their loss.

"You don't believe that your child is not going to come home, you don't believe that he's not going to be there, that he's not going to ring you, you're not going to hear the car any more."

Mrs Jones-Roberts said she and her husband were dreading the first anniversary.

Of the 14 Yarra Ranges people who died in the fires, seven were from Steels Creek, four from Yarra Glen and two from Toolangi.