Socials might be turning into a thing of the past for now, but the core ideas of community support and community spirit remains a part of the Prairie DNA. At least that was the case for Melissa MacKenzie and her family, whose house was damaged by a fire last week.
The Estevan Fire Rescue Service received a call about a fire in the southwest side of the city at 10 p.m. on April 8. The initial report stated that it was an outdoor fire, however, dispatchers rapidly upgraded it to a structure fire. MacKenzie, her husband and their five kids were in bed when a neighbour alerted them about the emergency.
The family quickly made it outside and were also able to safely bring their two dogs out.
MacKenzie said firefighters arrived on the scene in a matter of moments after the 911 call. At that time the backside of the house and the abutting garden shed were already on fire. It took firefighters a considerable amount of time to bring the fire under control.
“There definitely were some challenges with this one, as we were dealing with some very high-speed wind conditions as well as a lot of snow and low temperatures icing up the area,” said Fire Chief Dale Feser.
Feser pointed out the family was able to safely escape in large part thanks to the neighbours, one of whom was an off-duty RCMP member, who alerted them about the exterior fire that was in very close proximity to where they actually were at that time.
“We want to thank the people who were involved and showed some pretty quick thinking and good reaction time to alert occupants of the home,” said Feser.
“A great big thanks to an amazing group of people in our community, or neighbours, who came to help us trying to extinguish the fire with their extinguishers. Down at the West Valley Village there we have an amazing group of people. And there were a few that were just unprecedented in reacting. I really really appreciate that, we really appreciate our neighbours,” said MacKenzie.
MacKenzie also pointed out the great work the Estevan Fire Rescue Service did at the scene.
“I’d like to turn out a great big thank you to Fire Chief Dale Feser and his staff of firefighters who were there within minutes and did such a great job of controlling the fire so fast that we actually are able to salvage some of our stuff,” said MacKenzie.
The fire was started by a non-extinguished cigarette butt left outside. The wind quickly picked up the ambers and spread the fire, getting into the garden shed, into roof lining and then inside the building.
“We definitely want to make sure that everybody is discarding smoking materials appropriately, whether it be an ashcan or whatever the case may be, because it’s still fairly dry out there, so cigarette butts can easily start the fire as it was in this case,” said Feser.
The crews spent a lot of time ensuring that there were no more hotspots left, however the next day when the family came back to salvage some of their belongings they noticed some smoke. So the firefighters were dispatched to the location again to bring smouldering hot spots in attic space under control.
MacKenzie also pointed out the work done by the Estevan Police Service’s Sgt. Tyler McMillen and his crew, who were on the scene immediately and really helped to comfort the children and did many other things that she was grateful for.
When the fire was finally out, it became obvious that the backside of the house was badly damaged, so the Canadian Red Cross placed the family at the Days Inn for a few days. MacKenzie thanked the hotel, the staff and the Red Cross for organizing everything and making their first days after the tragedy more manageable.
The family was able to salvage most of their clothes and they were really grateful to Border Cleaning Services for helping them to make the clothes wearable again. MacKenzie also noted that many people stepped forward offering to provide them with clothes and furniture, which she strongly appreciate.
“We will eventually start rebuilding with furniture and stuff. The Salvation Army has reached out to us and said, when we get settled or if we need anything to let them know, which was amazing,” said MacKenzie, adding that the church she is associated with offered them help as well. “We do have a lot of help.”
While some things made it fine through the fire, MacKenzie’s husband’s and son’s prescribed medications melted down. But even before the family thought of anything, Henders Drugs got a hold of them and refilled all the prescriptions, adding some games and magazines to the package.
“They were awesome,” said MacKenzie.
The first couple of days after the fire were really rough with many ups and downs, but by the end of the week, the family was doing pretty well and even had a small holiday celebration for their kids.
“Kids are doing really well. We had a little bit of an Easter. We got them a few Easter eggs that we were able to salvage because they weren’t in the back room,” said MacKenzie. “They are very happy that we have a new home to go to so quickly.”
To make these days a bit sweeter for the family, Prairie Toons brought them some baked goods for Easter, which MacKenzie sincerely appreciated.
The family plans to go back to the house to see how much of their belongings are still usable. MacKenzie said that so far they have all the necessities, thank for the community support.
A GoFundMe campaign was started on Thursday. As of Monday, the campaign had 61 donors who contributed $3,925 out of the $5,000 goal. MacKenzie said that this money will help them to secure food and also secured the place that they will be moving in soon. People will leave some furniture at the place where the family will be living at for now, which MacKenzie called “another amazing community contribution.”
“We are doing much better. Thanks to the GoFundMe and the graciousness, and kindness, and caring and loving community we have. It’s been really much easier,” said MacKenzie.
And while the tragedy happened just a few days ago, all the community support made these challenging days manageable and more positive for MacKenzie.
“I’m just thankful that my whole family is together,” said MacKenzie. “I know we are all in hardship right now with the world having COVID-19, and a lot of people aren’t working and for everybody and anyone to reach out like that and donate, I’m just overwhelmed with the kindness, I really am … It’s been the community that really helped us through this.”
Readers can visit https://www.gofundme.com/f/en227t-mackenzie-house-fire to support the GoFundMe campaign organized for the family.
