Three families from Glens Falls are on the road to recovery after losing everything in a devastating house fire on Saturday night.
"My son looked out the window because he heard some crackling noise and he just yelled, 'Fire!' " said Tara Webster.
"Without even thinking, first thing I did was grab both my kids," said Joe Blake.
Blake, Chase Baker and Webster were home with their kids on Saturday night in a two-story home on Kenworthy Avenue.
The fire started around 7 p.m. Saturday, and it’s still unclear exactly how it started, but the two fathers who were in the home may have saved many lives in this case. Both dads grabbed their kids and got outside, only to find that they were trapped in the backyard. They were able to then break through a shed with a pick axe to get out of the yard to safety.
Panda VanTassell was down the street when she got the call.
"When I got there, it was 10 feet above the roof, the flames in the bottom of the house and the whole front room and front door, and everything was burning blue. That's how hot the flames were," VanTassell said.
There were nine people — several of them children — affected by the fire, which completely destroyed the house. In a matter of minutes, everything the three families owned was gone, reduced to a pile of rubble. Their cars are melted to the driveway.
Webster was just finishing moving in.
"We were just getting settled," Webster said. "I mean like, we were just settled. I had just finished remodeling the place that night."
And they'll need to start over.
"We're still gonna need those basic things like kitchen and bathroom stuff and shower curtains, things you don't think of until you're standing there saying, 'I don't have a colander to drain pasta,' " VanTassell said.
But there's another challenge: Where do all of those items go? Webster says she can't find a new apartment. She has two small dogs.
"Any place I've called, once I say I have dogs or service animals or whatnot, they're just like, 'Nope, sorry, we can't help you,' " Webster said.
None of the three families have found new homes yet and with item donations, no one has anywhere to store them. Blake says he has two places set up to store furniture and other items until he gets a new place, and hopes others will step up to help the VanTassell and Webster families too.
"We all lost everything. It wasn't just one person, not one family. We all lost something," Blake said.
Blake had birthday gifts for his daughter in a closet. The VanTassells had new electronics, expensive art supplies and college textbooks. The Websters lost important medications they haven't been able to refill.
"Three families, nine people, and we all have to start from nothing," VanTassell said.
Here are the individual GoFundMe links:
Blake said furniture and item donations can be stored at Helping Hands and the American Legion in Hudson Falls, and he hopes others will step up to store items for the Websters and VanTassells.
Additionally, UNO Chicago Grill in Queensbury is hosting a birthday party for Blake's daughter, who is turning six. They're collecting donations on Wednesday from 1-10 p.m.