WATCH ABOVE: With just a week before Christmas, a Drayton Valley family is calling a hotel home. Kendra Slugoski explains.
EDMONTON — A Drayton Valley family has been left homeless just days before Christmas after a fire tore through their mobile home Monday afternoon.
“It has been very, very hard,” said Jason Wyngaert. “It hasn’t hit that we’ve lost everything, yet.”
Wyngaert’s wife, Kim Steel, was home alone on Monday, packing for a trip home to Montreal for the holidays, when she heard loud crackling coming from the living room.
“By the time I got to the end of the hallway I saw the fire, I saw the smoke. The fire alarm went off about the same time I got there.”
Steel quickly grabbed her coat and purse and ran out of the house with only the clothes on her back.
“When I got outside the windows were smashing, black smoke was coming out.”
Steel called her husband, who was running errands with two of their three young children. The couple’s oldest daughter was at school at the time. While the cause has yet to be determined, it’s believed the fire started near the Christmas Tree.
Wyngaert, Steel and their three children have been staying in a hotel since Monday.
“Three children in a hotel room is just not ideal. It’s really bad. They have maybe 10-square feet to play in,” said Wyngaert.
While they’re trying to remain positive, the young family says the past couple of days have been tough. The upheaval has been particularly hard on the couple’s three-year-old son.
“He keeps saying, ‘Okay, so are we going home now?’ And we’re like, ‘Well, no, there’s no home to go to right now,'” said Steel.
Community members have jumped in to help, donating what they can. But Wyngaert says it’s difficult because they have nowhere to put anything.
The family hopes to take their planned holiday to Montreal. But in the meantime, they’re living in limbo, waiting for the cause of the fire to be determined and the insurance to kick in.
“Just waiting. Just sitting around, just not knowing, insurance not knowing what’s happening,” said Wyngaert. “We’re not doing good at all.”
Wyngaert and Steel were able to return home to assess the damage Wednesday afternoon. Wyngaert says the only items that can be salvaged are the washer and dryer.
With files from Kendra Slugoski, Global News.
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