For a young family who lost nearly everything in Monday’s fire which tore through their Government Street home, the community support has been overwhelming.
“Everyone here has just been so kind, I just love Penticton for what they have done for us in these last few days,” said an emotional William Mathison in the small motel room the five family members and Bruiser the dog are sharing until Friday. “I’m from Grand Forks and I always wanted to move here and this is why. The people are just so wonderful.”
He, wife Tanya, daughter Ava, 8, and three-year-old twins DJ and Dezaray, who they have custody of, were given an additional day’s accommodation through Emergency Social Services and the Red Cross is putting them up for a week afterwards while they desperately search for a new home.
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“We just want to say thank you, thank you to everybody, the firefighters, the police, so many bystanders who stopped to help, the community which has done so much to help, complete strangers who were so willing to help it’s phenomenal,” said Tanya. “It really put some light on a dark situation.
“It’s really been stressful, the same day as the fire my father went into hospice and may only have a couple of days but I’m staying fairly positive, the first few days were a blur but today is definitely a lot better for all of us.”
Another consolation for the family was finding the pet cat Fiji Wednesday who had gone missing after the fire but turned up at her sister Courtney’s house next door.
“It’s official the entire family is now back together again,” said Tanya.
Tanya just was getting ready to grocery shopping Monday around 3 p.m. when she noticed the fire outside at the rear of the house.
“I just opened the door to walk out and the flames were all along the back wall,” she recalled. “We grabbed the kids from their nap, they were wearing a diaper and t-shirt and ran outside and neighbours and people from across the way were bringing blankies to cover them up.”
The fire, fuelled by what is believed to be a broken natural gas line and strong winds, quickly ripped through the house and nearly 40 career and auxiliary firefighters from Penticton Fire Rescue aggressively fought the fire, preventing it from spreading to nearby homes.
According to officials the fire, not believed to be suspicious, started on the exterior of the building.
Tanya had special praise for the firefighters: “They were phenomenal, while they were fighting it they just grabbed pictures off the wall and photo albums and ran them out. So we managed to get a photo album and a little box of pictures that was kind of melted but we got my daughter’s baby book first born and all that, important stuff.”
One thing they didn’t get were the ashes of William’s dad.
“They said we can go back inside but I’m not really sure that I want to, if I don’t find them…” said William. “I’ll see.”
There are a number of fundraisers planned and anyone wishing to contribute to the gofundme campaign can log onto www.gofundme.com/help-tanya-and-wills-family.
More: VIDEO: House fire in east Penticton