Shortly after midnight on December 11th 2021, I found myself standing outside my home when I felt the intense heat coming from the flames engulfing the apartment immediately next to ours. Only moments earlier, my aunt and I had woken up to a loud disturbance & commotion outside our home when I noticed an intense orange glow coming from outside our window. This is why I had stepped outside through our patio, I remember how cold and windy that night was when I saw the fire already reaching up to the second level. I remember yelling from the top of my lungs “Fire, fire!” hoping that my neighbors would hear me, and then I ran inside realizing we only had a few minutes.

 

 

My tía (my aunt) and I grabbed her parrot’s cage and struggled to carry my bunny’s cage through the front door, she is a senior citizen and was only able to help me so much . My next door neighbor had to break her window to escape the flames while rescuing her cat, and she found me at my door struggling to save my bunny when she kindly helped me pick up the cage to get away from the burning building as the heat intensified. When we reached a safe distance and put down the cage, I noticed her bleeding profusely from her hands, I then realized she had cut herself while escaping the fire, and she was later taken to the hospital.

As we saw the firefighters attempting to control the blaze, I felt thankful that we were able to escape the fire with our pets safely, but we were left only with the dry clothes we had on our backs that night. Later at around 5am, the firefighters helped us gather some belongings, and I remember how my apartment looked unrecognizable when we entered it. As we walked inside holding flashlights, I felt warm water covering our feet, it looked dark and muddy. We were only able to recover a few articles of clothing that were already damaged by water and smoke.

 

 

 

It’s been 10 days since the fire and I couldn’t have imagined how difficult it is to recover from a loss of this kind.

I have now realized that the process to file a claim with our renters insurance will take much longer than we thought, it seems my aunt and I will not have a place to call our own by Christmas this year. This is my first time asking for help, so I’m keeping the goal amount low to let everybody know that any contribution counts. All donations will help towards replacing the items we lost in the fire and will help us start over as we find a new home. Your help means a lot to us during these holidays, thank you so much.

https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/eight-units-of-north-dallas-apartment-complex-damaged-in-fire/2836528/