What May Foronda first remembers about the night that left her without a home is a woman’s scream.
“I went to the bathroom window and looked,” Foronda said. “There [was] a fire going on already [in] the kitchen of our neighbour.... She was screaming right there inside the house.”
What Foronda did in the next few moments may well have made the difference between life or death for those living in her house.
I would know — I was living in the room next to her on June 28.
She woke everyone up — including myself — and made sure someone called 911.
Within minutes, we were outside watching the fire that gutted our neighbour’s house jump to our home and start clawing its way up the walls adjacent to where we were sleeping.
“When I started seeing the house burning, I was in shock,” said Foronda. “I just felt sick and I couldn’t talk.”
As a result, two families lost their homes and many — if not all — their possessions.
Smoke and water damage from fire hoses have made the recovery of their items questionable at best.
For May and her husband Eric, this has forced them out of the home where they raised their two sons, Pio and Bryan for 12 years — practically the only place they’ve been since arriving from the Philippines.
“The situation right now is very tough,” she said. “We don’t know where to start and how to start all over again.”
The situation is similar for Amelia Dela Cruz, her husband Arnold, and their two teenage children, Aaron and Amielle.
This family was living downstairs from the Forondas for two years, and just like them, they need to find a way to start again.
“I mean as a mom, you really want to have a definite place to stay,” Dela Cruz said. “The kids are asking me where are we going to be next — where are we going to live?”
Between hunting for a new place, navigating social services, salvaging their possessions and taking care of their children, this family has had little time for work, which means they’ve been losing income as well.
“I can’t eat and sleep because every time I close my eyes I could see the fire,” Dela Cruz told me.
It can be hard to know what to do in times like this, but I’d ask anyone who sees them to remember when you lend a hand, it doesn’t have to be a grand gesture.
Back during the night of the fire, as Dela Cruz felt the cold night air surround her, a neighbour gave her a blanket.
“She was so helpful,” Dela Cruz remembered.
Sometimes help is as simple as offering a little warmth in a cold world.
Fundraisers are being held for both families.
For the Forondas: https://www.gofundme.com/squamish-house-fire-victims
For the Dela Cruz family: https://www.gofundme.com/h8df3p-emergency-funds-for-fire-victims
***NOTE: ALL funds will go to the affected families. None of this money will go to the author of this story.
