ICYMI last week: Devastating fire burns home to the ground – funds being raised for senior who lost everything
A senior living north of Viking just off Highway 36 has endured a devastating loss as fire claimed her house and contents and three beloved pets.
Edie Hoffman lived in the three-bedroom cedar house along with her grandson, Kolby Cameron, who arrived a couple of months earlier to live with her and start over in this rural community.
“Three lives were lost in the fire,” he said, referring to the pain for his grandmother in not being able to get her three cats out of the house.
The fire started at 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday, April 21, and within 15 minutes the house was gone.
“She was at home all by herself,” he said, but still managed to get her dogs, a yellow lab named Lacey and a younger black lab/Australian Shepherd cross named Stark, out of the house.
After that, she stood and watched her home burn to the ground while phoning the fire department and then Kolby.
“Grandma called me and said, ‘you’ve got to come home because the house is on fire,’” he said.
“I was at work. I beat the fire department there by a couple of minutes. The fire department did their best to extinguish it but we have lost the house in its entirety.”
Kolby recalled having to quickly pick up Lacey and carrying the dog out of harm’s way. “She was pretty heavy,” he said, with a bit of a laugh. “It’s funny looking back at it, it could have been so much worse.”
Meanwhile, the firefighters jumped into action to keep the fire from spreading further into the trees and surrounding grass. Later, black looking ditches along the highway revealed just how quickly the flames were starting to spread in the dry conditions of this spring.
A cause of the fire cannot be determined as everything was burned up in the fire, said Kolby.
Now his most important task is to look after his grandmother and do his best to help her recover from the loss. They are staying with Edie’s daughter and trying to keep things going despite the massive setback.
“Grandma’s very overwhelmed,” he said, a feeling that can come on when dealing with even little losses like not being able to walk her dog as his leash is not there.
“She’s trying to be strong,” Kolby said, but tears are also part of the scenario. “There’s been lots of that.”
“We’re doing pretty good,” he said. “We’re just trying to get by.” But there are now many financial concerns to deal with as Edie is a pensioner now with unexpected expenses such as a fire bill to deal with.
“We don’t have any money for that,” he said, expressing the fear of losing the property. Affording another house is likely not in the cards either.
But the community has stepped up in an overwhelming way with contributions to a GoFundMe page from many friends in Viking and area. So far, the largest contribution has been from the Norseman Inn in Camrose for $1,000.
“The owner is a very good family friend of ours,” said Kolby.
But many others are contributing whatever they can to help out the 72-year-old grandmother. As of Tuesday afternoon, 64 donors contributed a total of $9,480 with the goal of raising $25,000.
“If you don’t want to donate at GoFundMe, a trust account has been set up for Edie Hoffman at both the Viking ATB and Vision Credit Union,” he said.
For now, thoughts turn to how to put things right, as much as is possible. If they could, the dream would be to place a trailer or mobile home on the property so Edie could return to live there as she has for the past 30 plus years.
But as Edie is on a fixed income, her family is exploring any possible options.
“We’re looking at a trailer or motor home,” said Kolby. “We’re looking at options on how to maybe make that happen.”
In the meantime, the family is most grateful for the help and support of the community. A long-time friend even lent Edie her car to use: “She’s very touched,” by this act of kindness, he said.
“I’d like to thank everybody for being so generous and so kind to our family,” said Kolby. “Grandma can’t thank everybody enough.
But although the losses are devastating, he was grateful that it wasn’t worse.
“I’m thankful not that we got off as bad as we did, but as good as we did,” he said.
CLICK HERE TO DONATE ONLINE AT GOFUNDME: www.gofundme.com/f/hwy-36-house-fire
Patricia Harcourt,
Editor
