Red Cross Responds to Faribault Fire
4 01 2008
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This is the remainder of the article from the Faribault Paper on Saturday:
Six cats were killed in the fire but two children who were home, though shaken, escaped with one of the cats and a turtle and without injury, said the family’s mother, Stephanie Olmos. Her four children did not go to school Friday.
“It would have been probably easier for them to go, but it wasn’t easier for me,” Olmos said.
Faribault firefighters arrived at Evergreen Estates, 415 Western Ave. SW, around 9:20 p.m. and saw heavy black smoke coming from a side window of the mobile home, according to Chief Mike Monge. Two of the children, who had been inside playing video games, said the tree caught fire and spread in the kitchen. Firefighters “knocked the fire down real quick,” Monge said, but damages to the structure and its contents were estimated to be more than $28,000.
The Red Cross is providing assistance to the family in securing necessities, local chapter Director John Thompson said.
“We’ve issued them a Red Cross card to help pay for food and clothes,” Thompson said. “They’re relying totally on the Red Cross right now.”
Though she doesn’t have any family in the area, Olmos said she was caught off guard by acts of support. After the flames were extinguished, a firefighter went back into the mobile home to get Speedy, youngest son Adrian’s turtle, and AmericInn hotel staff washed her family’s clothes.
“I couldn’t say … thank you enough,” Olmos said Friday while waiting for an insurance agent to arrive. “Being a single mother, it’s overwhelming.”