An Oyama family is out of their home at the worst possible time, after an accidental fire destroyed their house last week.
And now the family of five are in need of a place to live and to replace most of their possessions after the fire overnight last Wednesday.
“It’s been really hard just dealing with the loss of everything,” said Shianne Etzerza. “But we are grateful we are OK. We pretty much need everything. We are staying at a hotel but today is the last day covered under emergency services so we are trying to figure out how we are going to pay for tonight until we find a place to live.”
Etzezra says they did have insurance but not everything was covered and the family is now looking to rebuild and is in need of virtually everything.
“We have some items bought from victims services and two change of clothes all from Wal-Mart,” she said. “We are so lucky to have had these items bought for us. But everything else is in the air at this point. We detail vehicles at our house for a living and that was our main source of income. The shop is OK thankfully but there is no power or water source. We don’t know what to do at this point.”
The Lake Country Fire Department responded to the home on Allison Road in Oyama just before midnight last Wednesday night only to find thick smoke billowing from the house, and flames shooting out the back door.
Fire crews were able to knock the flames down but the extreme heat created by the blaze, which began in the home’s basement, destroyed almost all of the possessions inside the home and severely damaged the house.
“The fire started in the mechanical room/furnace room area ,” said Lake Country deputy fire chief Brent Penner. “We haven’t determined what actually started it in that room, but it was accidental in nature. It was quite a stubborn fire. We had to knock it down and hit it hard from the outside before things had calmed down and we could get closer to (where it started).”
No one was injured as the family members and their pets were able to get out of the home, however now they are in need of help from the community. They have already has received plenty of support, including finding a home for 10 chickens.
“We would love to thank the amazing people of Lake Country and Kelowna for all of the help and kind words and especially the firefighters and police. We are so grateful for all of their help,” she said.
If you would like to help Etzerza out contact her at etzerzashianne@gmail.com