Hillsboro family safe, loses nearly everything in fire
HILLSBORO, Ore. (KOIN) -- An alarm alerted a Hillsboro family to a fire that began in their garage and spread through their house early Saturday morning.
A number of the residents near 3000 SE Cypress Street called 911 to report the blaze around 6 a.m., authorities said.
Homeowner Rebecca Aguila Siefke told KOIN 6 News she was just happy her family was able to get out of the fast moving fire.
"I just start hearing my mom go downstairs, and then they see it's fire, and then they come banging on all of our doors, waking us all up, yelling, screaming, telling us all go out," daughter Eviana Lopez said. "We all just go out and basically nothing and barefoot, all of it, just out, luckily, just in time, because it started expanding a lot more right when we all left."
“It’s my understanding is that the room immediately above the garage is a bedroom," said Piseth Pich with Hillsboro Fire. "The smoke alarms did go off which then alerted the family they were all able to get out safely.”
The fire sparked somewhere in the garage before moving through the living area and into the roof. The exact cause of the fire is not yet determined.
Firefighters went back inside to rescue a total of four dogs, two turtles, a lizard and a hamster that just arrived for Christmas.
"I was screaming their names," Aguila Siefke said. "Oh, my dog's come out. Five minutes later, the firefighter goes, here's her turtles in a bucket, a Home Depot bucket. And then five minutes later, he goes to his little hamster, and then he goes back in. He's like, here's a lizard. That was like, oh, you guys got everybody."
Aguila Siefke, whose voice is still raspy from smoke inhalation, is grateful her family is together despite the loss of nearly everything.
"It's like Christmas just happened," she told KOIN 6 News. "Now we have to figure out the deductibles and figure out how are we going to pay for this. It's just not something you plan for."
The family started a GoFundMe to help them rebuild their lives.
2024 has been a tough year for the family, which included the loss of their grandmother.
"This year has kind of been hard for my family, and so I really tried really hard to make it the best Christmas," she said. "So at least the hamster made it out."
Her sister-in-law Shareena Burny said seeing her "siblings lose almost everything that they own in the blink of an eye, literally, is just very humbling. I'm very thankful that they're safe, but it just kind of, it's a great reminder to know, like, cherish the people that you love."