A fire that started in the garage of a home along 10th Avenue Northeast has left a Golden Gate Estates family struggling to recover, just months after they began rebuilding their lives following the sudden death of their father.
Jadon Yetter, 18, and his sister McKenzie, 25, moved into their house only a month ago after raising enough money through donations to secure a new place to live. Their father died in May after suffering a heart attack while driving on Golden Gate Boulevard and crashed into a pole.
“In May, my father passed away. He died in a car accident, and we were traumatized. That was everything to us. He was the one who took care of us. So, we raised a GoFundMe. Then we, you know, tried to find a new house, and this is the house that we found, and now it's gone,” said Jadon.
It was Sunday afternoon when Jadon had just finished mowing the lawn. He parked the lawnmower in the garage, turned it off, and went inside the house to talk with McKenzie.
“Came back out, and the engine was on fire, and there was nothing I could do. Went inside, got them out, got the animals out, and it blew up,” Jadon said.
Although the fire was contained in the garage, it destroyed everything inside, leaving the rest of the house and their belongings covered in soot.
“Everything in the garage is gone. We had just stocked the freezers and everything. All my tools for my business. All of that's gone. And then inside the house, it's just completely black, covered inside. And, I mean, we're trying to figure out what we can save, but even so, it's still going to take forever to clean and obviously traumatic,” Jadon said.
Thankfully, the Yetters and their three pets made it out safely.
The Red Cross assisted the family with temporary housing in a hotel for about a week, but the Yetters are uncertain about what will happen next.