Family escapes with only the clothes on their backs, still grateful

PALMER — Talking to the Hvamstad family on Thursday, listening to them laugh and joke with one another, you wouldn’t know they’d narrowly escaped a house fire alive Jan. 18.

“We don’t know where this is leading, but I believe it’s positive. We’re all sitting here together,” Nathan Hvamstad said. “If one person here was missing I don’t know what anything would mean to me.”

He said the American Red Cross showed up to help when he was “standing there barefoot in the ice and snow wondering what to do.”

The organization paid for a hotel and then a security deposit for the Hvamstads — Nathan, wife Leslie and their two boys, Austin Hvamstad and Chevi Perry — and since then the family has seen nothing but support.

A neighbor is giving Austin a bed and the family a television. A pastor gave them money to buy clothes. Co-workers of Leslie’s have collected donations. Folks at Wasilla High School gave Austin some blankets and a shirt.

“Everything that we have on right now is donated,” Nathan said.

Despite the fire, Nathan Hvamstad said he’s feeling very positive. He said a Red Cross volunteer tried to apologize to him for a paperwork mix up the other day and he laughed.

“It’d be impossible to make me upset right now,” he told the volunteer. “I lost everything and things keep pouring in to help me. How can I be upset?”

The fire started Saturday morning. Nathan was the first to discover the blaze.

“I couldn’t figure out why the floor was on fire,” he said.

Then he saw it — flames dripping out of an electrical socket. Leslie said it was dripping in just about the worst spot possible.

“Twenty-two dollars worth of toilet paper was sitting under where the fire was dripping,” Leslie said.

Which is why she didn’t think fire extinguishers would have helped. Nathan tried to put it out, though. He lifted a 20-gallon tub of water — they kept it on hand because their pipes froze pretty frequently — and walked it through the house, “like it was a tea kettle.”

Though the water did nothing to the fire, Austin said the effort was an impressive display.

“I used to think he was old until I saw him do that,” he joked.

Austin also joked that he did manage to save his most valuable possession before Nathan interrupted.

“He grabbed his Xbox,” Nathan said.

“And my gun,” Austin added, saying it was a .22 competition rifle his dad got him for Christmas.

He tried to go back in to get a spare key to Nathan’s car. It was parked near a propane tank the fire was threatening. Nathan said he went in after his son, grabbed him and pulled him back out.

Leslie said it was miraculous that her family made it out that day.

“If we had been two minutes longer, all that smoke, we would’ve been dead in our beds,” she said.

It was also a miracle that he was up at 8 a.m. on a Saturday, Nathan said. He said he knows it sounds crazy, but he thinks there was something of the divine at play.

For the family, Sunday’s fire was another blow to their personal lives. On Dec. 8, Leslie’s daughter (Nathan’s stepdaughter) Danielle McMorris died of ovarian cancer at the age of 26.

“I think she woke me up,” Nathan said.

Later, he joked that maybe she picked him because he’d stolen the battery out of the smoke detector to use in his guitar. But he said he’s convinced it was her. After the fire, a neighbor gave him a hat he’d accidentally left behind while visiting. It was a hat Danielle had given him just before she died.

Later on the lawn, everyone wearing what they slept in — shorts for Austin and for Nathan his “tighties” — the family was looking for their cat. Chevi said he thinks he heard Danielle’s voice then saying, “she’s with me now.”

Danielle’s fight with cancer was a protracted one. Leslie said her daughter didn’t let go until she was sure her family — her husband, 4-year-old son and the Hvamstads — would be OK without her.

So what’s next for the Hvamstads?

They’re in need of pretty much anything you can think of — furniture, clothes — and are spending lots of time gathering donations. Leslie said it’s been instructive when she goes to use something, like a hairbrush or toothbrush, and realizes she doesn’t have it.

The home — a 1950s trailer with multiple lean-to additions — wasn’t insured. Leslie said she didn’t think she could’ve gotten it insured, but they still own the acre where it sat and plan to rebuild.

Fire officials say they had trouble fighting the blaze because of the state of Pike Avenue along which it sits. It’s been something of a difficult issue for the Mat-Su Borough, which hasn’t been able to come up with a solution for how to upgrade the road to allow emergency vehicles access. Until that happens, those living in Pike Avenue have trouble getting insurance.

Nathan said he’s not so worried about the road. Chevi added that he’ll make sure any new house has working fire extinguishers and smoke alarms. Nathan said he will begin rebuilding come summer. He builds homes professionally.

“He’s got his work cut out for him now,” Leslie said with a laugh.

Contact Andrew Wellner at 352-2270 or andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com.

An account has been set up to accept donations for the Hvamstad family, which lost everything in a fire this past weekend. Donations can be made to Wells Fargo Bank, account No. 5287280118.