💍 The Love That Fire Couldn’t Burn Thirteen years ago, a marathon through the Australian bush turned into a nightmare. A firestorm swept in. And Turia Pitt — once a model, an athlete, a woman full of motion and promise — was caught in its path. 🔥 She suffered burns to 65% of her body. Over 200 surgeries. Months in recovery. Years of pain. But this is not a story about tragedy. It’s a story about what stayed. 💫 Michael Hoskin was her boyfriend at the time — a police officer with a quiet heart and steady hands. He could have walked away. He stayed. He left his job. Became her full-time caregiver. Became her mirror when she couldn’t face herself. He reminded her, every single day, that beauty doesn’t end at the surface. That true love doesn’t blister. It roots. 🌱 Years later, in the Maldives — not a hospital room — but beneath sun and sea breeze, Michael proposed. Turia was stunned. “I’m so in love,” she whispered to the press. And the world felt that truth. When CNN asked him if he’d ever thought of leaving… Michael simply said: “I married her soul. Her character. Not her body.” 💬❤️ Because real love isn’t something you see. It’s something you recognize. In the quiet. In the storms. In the after. And sometimes, the strongest kind of love… Is the one that stays. Even when everything else is gone. 💍🔥🕊️

Initially, Turia Pitt wrote a love letter to her partner to ‘take the piss’. Then she got vulnerable.

Turia Pitt first knew she had a crush on her now-partner Michael Hoskin when she was 12. She knew there were sparks when they were teenagers and Hoskin crashed in her bedroom after a party. And the time Pitt invited Hoskin to her 21st birthday and hoped they would get together romantically.

When they finally kissed, Pitt said it felt “like a Wizz Fizz up my back and stars were exploding in my eyes”.

From then on, they were inseparable.

Then in September 2011, Pitt was severely injured after she was burned in a fire while competing in a 100km ultramarathon through the Kimberley region in Western Australia. It left her with burns to more than 65 per cent of her body.

But throughout it all, Pitt said Hoskin was by her side.

“To endless appointments, surgeries and pain rinse and repeat. Because of you, your love and your support, I knew that whenever I faulted I could always rely on you. I only have the life I have today because of you,” she said.

Recently, Pitt shared a love letter she had written to Hoskin via her podcastHard Work.

Initially, she said she wanted to start her letter by “taking the piss” and sharing 20 things she ‘hates’ about her partner – like the fact he leaves toothpaste in the sink or has questionable dress sense in her opinion.

But then she realised that she wanted to be honest about how much she loves Hoskin, even though it makes her feel vulnerable.

“If there’s one thing I’m trying to teach my sons is to say how you feel and to tell the people you love how much you love them. You are the nicest, humblest, kindest most self-effacing human I have ever met, and being with you has made me a better person.”

In 2015 the pair got engaged, but Michael previously revealed that he actually bought the diamond ring when she was in intensive care. Because he knew that Pitt was the person for him.

“[We were] two young people who were thrown into a hell hole but somehow made it out with their love intact,” Pitt said in her love letter. “I am the person I am today because of you.”

Watch: Turia Pitt speaks to 60 Minutes. Post continues below.

Recalling the fire onMamamia‘s No Filterpodcast a few years ago, Pitt said, “One of the really striking memories that I have is all of us were on the valley floor and we could see the fire approaching, and at that stage, I was really distressed and panicked and I was crying.

“One of the other men from the fire actually took the time to turn to me and he said to me ‘don’t worry, everything’s going to be okay’ and I think that’s extraordinary. He just took that small moment, when his life was in danger and his son’s life was in danger, to reassure me and… it just shows that humanity, the best in humanity can just show up in the worst times.”

With nowhere else to go, Pitt was forced to run through a wall of flames. Hours later, medical help arrived, and when they did, doctors did not expect her to survive.

Almost 10 years after the accident, Pitt found herself sifting through boxes of her medical records late at night.

She was searching for information a surgeon had requested about her nose, which she had been attempting to get fixed so she could breathe properly. That’s when she found it – a USB amongst the papers.

“I was like ‘ha, this is interesting’,” she recalled in a recent episode of her Turia Pitt is Hard Work podcast.

Not knowing what was on it, she put the USB in her computer and found a folder labelled “photos”.

“So I click on that and there’s a folder with dates on the photos. They were really confronting because I was swollen but parts of my skin that have now been grafted, they didn’t look like [they do now].”

Pitt also saw photos of her face and red bloodied hands. And they were “gory” and “partially amputated”.

“I slammed my computer shut and I [stepped] away.”

With her family asleep, she went upstairs to see her then-10-month-old son Rahiti, who was crying. As she held him, she attempted to ground herself. But after putting him back in his cot, she still felt too anxious to fall asleep.

Instead, she made her bed on the couch and watched TV until 5am when she decided to go to the gym. Two weeks later, she decided to call her psychologist.

Turia said the photos “mentally” put her back to that time of her life in hospital and surviving the fire.

“I had gotten used to this new body, and this is who I am now, but it was upsetting because I saw old Turia and new Turia at the same time so that was what was upsetting. Looking at the photos I was like f*** I don’t actually know how someone survives that.”