SEYMOUR, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – A Seymour family has been sifting through the ashes of their home. It burned down Monday night, for the second time in the last year and a half.
The first fire was caused by a space heater.
Firefighters are still investigating how Monday’s fire started.
“It’s a big blow, I mean, it’s still kinda sinking in that like everything that’s gone, you know,” said homeowner Nicole Hoier Everson.
Everson’s daughter Addie was at a friend’s house when the fire started.
“I didn’t know what was going on, and then she told me, and I basically just sat in the basement all day, not knowing what to do with myself,” she said. “I just didn’t know what to do.”
Nicole Everson tells FOX it was like déjà vu, watching flames char their home, helpless to do anything about it.
“It just keeps coming back, like pictures that I think of and things that are just not replaceable. It’s been…it’s been a shock.”
The family was just getting back on their feet.
“My husband was in the process of remodeling, after the fire,” Everson said.
The family was at a splash pad in Seymour for less than an hour when the fire broke out.
“She was at her friend’s house and her mom called me, and she didn’t realize that I didn’t know yet,” Everson recalled. “It was just a weird conversation. She was like, are you guys okay? And I’m like, ‘Yeah, we’re okay. What’s going?’”
They’d return to see their home being demolished by the fire, leaving them with literally nothing but the swimsuits on their backs.
The bright orange flames and black smoke a devastating replay for neighbors too.
“I almost wanted to cry,” neighbor Lucy Deleeuw said, fighting back tears. “Sorry, but it’s hard to see that. This is their second one, and so it’s devastating!”
Watching her neighbors relive a nightmare, DeLeeuw tells FOX 11 she wanted to help and began asking for donations.
“We all need each other, and if someone doesn’t help someone else, who’s going to? That’s what life’s about – it’s about love, it’s about helping other people. If you don’t have that, you have nothing!”
And she wasn’t the only one.
“We have decided to make the Hustle Inn a donation point,” Seymour’s Hustle Inn owner Leslie Fulton said. “We got quite of bit of clothing items, so food would be great, as well as anything like gift cards, amazon cards and stuff of that nature.”
Family friend Amy McLain tells FOX 11 she almost immediately started a GoFundMe page for the family.
“I started right away asking Nicki for sizes of the kids; what they most needed, and the one thing she said is they’re going to need a place to stay for now, so I was like let’s do a GoFundMe.”
Everson says the support was overwhelming.
“It’s just been overwhelming in a great way,” she said. “Just everyone seems to come together in wanting to help us, and it’s just great that so many people are caring and wanting to help us.”
But there are also those who have their doubts.
“People mentioning insurance scams and things like that, but we don’t have as good as insurance as we did before,” said Everson.
“Because of the first fire, we had to get new insurance and, I mean, we lost everything, and we’re not even going to be able to replace everything.”
Still, the family says rumors can’t overpower the good that has come out of people.
A benefit to help raise funds and collect donations for the family is set for July 11 at the Hustle Inn in Seymour.
