Buckhorn community rallies to help family of 8 who lost home in fire

Jacki Hilliard lived in her Buckhorn home for 10 years. On Thursday, the home burned to the ground.

“I was burning pizza boxes like I’ve done a thousand times before, me and my older daughter. My older daughter took the kids outside while the fire was going in the house, and we were just playing in the front yard, and I heard the fire alarm,” said Hilliard.

Hilliard says she went back into her house to find smoke everywhere and a burnt pizza box on the floor. She opened the windows to air it out, and then left to go into town to buy some juice and snacks for the kids.

READ MORE: Man suffers burns in shed fire in Peterborough

Get breaking National news

For news impacting Canada and around the world, sign up for breaking news alerts delivered directly to you when they happen.

Sign up for breaking National newsletter Sign Up

By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy.

When she returned to her home around 4 p.m., she found it fully engulfed in flames.

While Hilliard says this is one of the most difficult times of her life, she’s grateful for the community support.

“Everything was destroyed in the fire, they didn’t even have underwear, socks for the next morning, so we started out a small fund to help them out, to get them going, to be able to go to town and buy all the necessities that they need before the insurance starts kicking in,” Tom Janzen said.

READ MORE: Fire destroys RV camper North of Port Hope

On Friday, Buckhorn Public School hosted an art sale to raise money for the school, but when they heard about the fire, they immediately decided to help the family instead.

“So we put signs up, and as parents came in thinking they were going to be donating money to the school, they read the signs and started to donate extra money so we were able to give it to the family on Friday,” said Mary Louwright, principal at Buckhorn Public School.

“The community has been amazing, we’ve gotten so many donations. If we didn’t get the donations that night, my kids wouldn’t have had any clothes to wear that night,” said Hilliard.

Trent Lakes Deputy Fire Chief Steven Brockbank tells Chex News they still don’t know the cause of the fire, and it is currently under investigation.

A GoFundMe campaign has been launched to help the family with a goal of $5,000.