By Gianina Schwanecke and Dave Murdoch
The Dannevirke community has rallied around an Albert St family who lost everything in a devastating house fire over the long weekend. While donations of household goods and clothes have come flooding in, finding a new house will be challenging, say friends of the family.
Emergency services were called to the Dannevirke house fire at 12.58am on Saturday where they found a fire in the kitchen. The four occupants of the house, a mother and her three sons, were alerted to the blaze by the fire alarm and evacuated the house.
While no one was injured, two of her sons were transported to Palmerston North Hospital to be treated for smoke inhalation and discharged on Monday.
Neighbour Joanne Saunders has lived on the street, and known the family involved, for more than 20 years. She was preparing for bed on Saturday when she heard yelling and noticed an orange glow from next door. "I thought, 'Something is not right'. The whole house was just orange." It was when she heard the booming and smelled the smoke she realised what was happening. "I can't get over how quickly it went up. I'm just so pleased they all got out." Saunders said the woman and her three children were "bloody lucky". "It just makes you think."
Family friend Rebecca Madden said it was "devastating" news for her friend, who had grown up in that house. "There's a lot of memories. It's their lifetime." Madden appealed to the public for help and spent most of her long weekend sorting through the many donated items in her home at 39 Christian St, Dannevirke.
