The relatives of an Okanagan family displaced by a destructive mobile home fire south of Penticton last week are fundraising to help the family get back on their feet.
Jennifer Rowlands said her 45-year-old brother Johnny suffered second degree burns in the kitchen fire at the Riva Ridge mobile home park on Dec. 21 around 7:45 p.m.
“My brother was cooking in the kitchen with some grease so it started as a grease fire,” she said on Monday.
Rowlands said her 67-year-old mother, Charlotte, wasn’t home at the time, because she was recovering from post-surgery complications at Penticton Regional Hospital (PRH).
She said her brother was flown to Vancouver General Hospital (VGH) and is sedated and on a breathing machine as he recovers from his burns in the intensive care unit.
“His whole chest is burnt, one of his arms, a few of his fingers and his shin,” she said.
Rowlands said her mother’s home of thirty years has been destroyed and is uninhabitable.
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“It’s completely gone. Everything is gone,” she said.
Rowlands launched an online crowdfunding campaign as she said her mother did not have home insurance.
“She needs stuff to furnish her house like living room items, bedroom items, furniture, kitchen items, clothing and linens.”
Rowlands is also working to find a drop-off location for donations.
The concerned daughter is worried her mother may find it too emotionally taxing to return to the same mobile home park where she’s lived for decades.
Rowlands lives in Langley and said her mother may relocate to the Lower Mainland.
“I don’t know how much this trauma is going to affect her, having all of these memories and trying to get past it.”
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