Robert & Serena Byrnes - Krieghund Farm Fire Fund

All funds donated directly help the human and dog victims of this tragedy.

On Saturday April 23rd, 2022, my family and I woke up to what was our everyday routine; little did we know our lives were going to forever change that day. 

As we were leaving the farm to head for town we noticed a fire just Northeast of Lyons, NE. As we raced to get home we called our neighbors to warn them what was coming. Once we realized it was getting too close for comfort, we rushed to do all we could to save our dogs. It wasnt until we were overwhelmed with smoke and heat that we knew it was too close for safety. I had to flee the farm with our 4 year old daughter and Wolfgang, and Robert stayed behind so that he could attempt to rescue our precious animals. We ran for our dogs instead of our fire safe and valuables. 

Robert is an army veteran (SSG) and he has always been very brave in the face of danger. It also scared me in that moment because he was greatly endangering his life by staying behind. 

Thank you to the firefighters that found him and drug him to safety. I know he would have sacrificed himself to save every animal he could have that day. If it were not for my 4 year old being with us, I would have likely been injured or worse while refusing to leave them. 

Fortunately, our son Jason was with family in Omaha that day.

By Saturday night, our 4 person family would end up crammed in a tiny one-bedroom we have access to use temporarily.

In mere moments we had lost everything we had worked so diligently on for many years. All we walked away with was the clothes on our backs. We are left with only one of our main vehicles.

Krieghund Farm and our award-winning, world-class Import line German Shepherds are our pride and joy and our family Business! We had roughly 30 German shepherds throughout the farm, not to mention a two-day-old litter. We now have only 9 German Shepherds left. Our Son Jason's service dog Fluffy and multiple cats, including Rosie's best buddy Zelda and our beloved cat Boots were also lost.

Our livestock luckily survived!

Our lives forever changed on this day, as we are now faced with the financial burdens squarely on our shoulders at this point to survive, recoupe and rebuild. Due to our off grid lifestyle choice of alternative electricity and heating etc none of our structures including our home were insured.

A total of 18 outbuildings that housed our dogs and business as well as personal farm tools and machinery livestock etc were all destroyed along with our home. Many of these buildings were brand new and state of the art. All our lifes work to be prepared for just about any disaster,, BUT we didn't anticipate the gates of hell opening from a fire started because of someone elses negligence during a sevre drought/red flag warning.

There is no way ever to prepare to have to flee your home and life's work in mere minutes..

We had prepared to endure anything and everything and help those around us if needed ..we were just not prepared for this... never could have imagined a fire taking it all in the blink of an eye.

We are both overwhelmed and thankful beyond words to all those that have rallied to help us with everything we have needed the last four days. We are equally overwhelmed by the outlook ahead of us and the financial burdens that lies ahead. Sadly our nest egg safe wasn't rated for three days of intense heat.. so we literally lost everything...

Normally we wouldnt ask anything of anyone, but we haven't been given much choice from our friends, families, and customers who encouraged us to let others help..

We appreciate it more than you all could possibly understand!

If you would like to learn about more ways to help please look up on Facebook the Robert & Serena Byrnes Family Benefit Group or you may contact Jennifer Dolezal at [phone redacted]. If you are not comfortable with donations through GoFundMe, checks can be made out to the Byrnes family and mailed to: Krieghund Farm PO Box 382, Lyons NE 68038 and there is an Amazon custom registry that we also benefit from. We also use Chewy.com for dog food if you want to directly help feed the beautiful German Shepherds we were able to rescue in time.

God Bless You All!! We can never say thank you enough!