BY LUCIE KRISMAN
Tim Bruce said he and his family are thankful to have everything that matters after what they have gone through this month.
"We have everything that is important," he said. "No one had to go to the hospital. No one had to go anywhere. We didn't even have to take the dog to the vet. Everyone is perfectly healthy.”
The day before Thanksgiving, Tim and Ami Bruce reflected on how their family has coped since a fire at their Eudora home last week.
Ami Bruce said everything coincidentally lined up in the wrong way after the family used their backyard fire pit on the night of Nov. 16.
"Our trash can is never next to our house,” she said. “All day Saturday, we did yard work and moved it because we were raking and mowing, and then Saturday night we had a fire in our fire pit."
After dumping the leftover ash in the trash can by the house on Nov. 18., nothing appeared to be hot or alarming to the Bruces, but it did not take long for a fire to start.
"Forty-five minutes later, we were getting phone calls that the house was up in smoke," Ami Bruce said.
The ash from the fire pit igniting the trash can resulted in a fire that has left their approximately 70-year-old house with fire, smoke and water damage.
Among the damaged items in the house are floors, drywall, carpet, windows and doors as well as a 10-foot hole in the roof. Everything in the kitchen and all plastic toys and plastic totes that were in the house are not salvageable, although the family pictures inside those totes were able to be saved, Ami Bruce said.
"Maybe the front wall is salvageable and some interior walls, but everything else has to come down," Ami Bruce said. "Even the roof has to come off."
All clothes and fabric items were sent to textile cleaners. The Bruce family received their emergency clothes back, and everything was moved out of the house that will be able to be cleaned.
A building adjuster will look at the items left behind and potentially turn those items over for repair. In the meantime, the Bruce family has been staying with Tim's parents.
"It's been hard," Tim Bruce said. "It's our home. It's where we raise our kids and play with our dog. It's definitely been a challenge trying to keep the kids together as far as just not letting them get too caught up in what they lost."
To Ami Bruce, the grief comes in waves, but it has brought her family closer together.
"We've got a long ways to go, but we feel closer now," Ami Bruce said. "It's weird to think that in our 40 years we've never experienced this, and yet our kids are experiencing it now at 13, 12 and 5."
For the Bruces, the shock of the events began wearing off at the end of last week. Ami Bruce said she has felt the support of the community from rereading their messages, notes and words of encouragement.
"The support that we feel from our friends, our family and this community has been amazing," she said. "It's been a humbling experience to accept help, to go, ‘Wow, we're on the receiving end of this.' ”
Over the past week since the fire, she said there has been lots of community involvement, ranging from words of encouragement to gift cards to stuff they did not even realize they needed.
On the night of the fire, Eudora Middle School Principal Jeremy Thomas and PE teacher Mitch Tegtmeier brought pizza over. Police officers Fred Ramirez and Caleb Lewis offered to take the Bruce children clothes shopping that night as well.
"There are things that got dropped off that we never even would have thought of," Tim Bruce said. "I still remember the day of, everybody going, ‘What can we do for you?’, and going ‘I'm good, everything is fine, we're gonna put the fire out and everything is gonna be fine.’ And it wasn't. It's not. It will be, but it's not.”
Ami Bruce also expressed gratitude for Jeremiah Holcomb of the Refuge Christian Church, for the Eudora Chamber of Commerce and for friends who have stepped in where they could assist.
“That's actually what's been helpful was when people go, ‘This is what I can do,’ " she said.
The Bruces said they are grateful to the Eudora City Fire Department, Wakarusa Township Fire Department and Eudora Township for responding to the fire.
"If they hadn't, it would have been a total loss," Ami Bruce said. "We still have those most treasured items because of the work that they did. We still have our pictures. We still have most of our finger paintings. The things that aren't replaceable."
They also feel supported by the Eudora community and their friends in and out of state who have offered their help.
"It's the collection of support and love and generosity," Ami Bruce said. "My babies are taken care of at school. Those strangers that have stopped by and given us hugs or words of encouragement. I still think it might be overwhelming for us to even comprehend the magnitude of support."
She said she wants to share the story of what happened in hopes that the same thing happening to other families can be prevented.
“The fire department said these kind of fires have increased because of where people store their trash cans,” she said.
The U.S. Fire Administration recommends making sure fire pits are at least three feet away from anything flammable as well as using a metal screen over wood-burning fires to avoid sparks floating out.
Despite having lost items in the house that hold sentimental value, Tim Bruce said nothing is as valuable as his family.
"The fact that I can hug all of them whenever I want to, I can fix everything else sooner or later," he said. "All this other stuff is just stuff."
Reach reporter Lucie Krisman at eudoratimes@gmail.com.
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