SUMMERFIELD, Fla. – Renee Oswelll tried to hold back tears as she shared the painful situation her family is going through after a fire ripped through her brother’s mobile home in Summerfield.
“It’s breaking my heart,” Oswell said. Her brother, Nick Morales shared the home with his wife, Tiffany, their two daughters, three grandchildren and their beloved chihuahua, Kevin - who didn’t make it out of the house and died along with four guinea pigs.
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“A trailer goes up like that. Two of the little girls are in dance, they lost all their costumes, all their dance shoes, their trophies, you know. I don’t think that part has hit them yet,” she said.
Marion County Fire Rescue responded Sunday afternoon to the home after multiple 911 calls. At the time, The Morales family was out on a family outing, and when they came back, they found their home in ashes; nothing was salvageable.
Oswell told News 6, the family had recently had a baby shower for their 23-year-old daughter, who is eight months pregnant. All of the gifts were destroyed in the blaze, including the baby’s bassinet.
Despite the difficult times ahead, Oswell is doing what she can to keep the family’s spirits up.
“I said, ‘You know, we gotta have some Christmas spirit,’ so I just went out, and I got a tree, and I’m gonna let them decorate it,” she said.
They’re now trying to figure how they’re going to move forward and rebuild.
“I’ve got a couch, I’ve got a floor, but you know, I can’t give ‘em more than that,” she said. “They need everything. I mean if you were to come home to nothing, what would you need? 14:55:50 we can only do what we can as a family, and you know we stick together but we’re not a family of money.”
A GoFundMe fundraiser has been set up for the family. You can lend a helping hand here.