The Quintanilla family is coming home, but they need help in making it feel like home for the holidays.
After a fire left their house uninhabitable on Oct. 16, Karina Quintanilla and her family have struggled to find a place to live.
Although they were provided with temporary living assistance for three weeks, the family of eight will soon have to return to their Edinburg home to avoid being homeless.
Karina’s youngest son, Abraham, first noticed the fire, which began in the family’s living room, because he was woken up when he felt a sudden burn. A spark from a short circuit had landed on him.
Karina explained that her son immediately went to wake her and her husband Vicente, as well as his sister Evelyn who then woke the rest of her siblings.
She recalled the events of that day with sadness as she spoke about the moment her family ran out of the burning house.
“In a matter of seconds, it went from a small flame that advanced quickly and all we saw was our entire living room on fire,” Karina said in Spanish, adding that as she and her family stood outside the house, all they could see was the black smoke.
In an attempt to put the fire out, Vicente went back into the house to douse the flames with water. And although the fire had grown too big for her husband to enter the house, he kept trying to extinguish it.
“From outside he continued to try to put out the fire by spraying it with water from the hose. That is when a window exploded and the broken glass fell on his feet — those are the burns he suffered,” Karina said.
While her father tried to stop the fire, Evelyn took it upon herself to call the fire department.
The blaze started in the living room and stretched across the house and into the kitchen, causing damage to a majority of their home. The family lost much to the fire including their furniture, clothing and memorabilia.
“It is the realization that we lost items that had sentimental value … I had photos of my kids when they were little, videos of when they were little,” Karina said about her biggest losses.
The family also lost important documents in the fire, and her children lost all their school supplies, including computers that were loaned to her younger kids.
Since that day, members of her church have donated items to the family, including clothing and other necessities. Friends also donated clothing and the Red Cross gave them $800.
They also received help from Hidalgo County, which provided the family temporary housing in a hotel for three weeks.
Due to his injuries caused by the fire, Vicente was unable to work for about two weeks.
But the family has kept pushing forward and — along with the help of their friends — rebuilding the home.
The county provided them with containers where they could throw away the pieces of the home that were damaged.
Her daughter, Evelyn, started a GoFundMe page that raised about $2,500. It’s money that the family has since used to purchase materials to help rebuild their home.
After three weeks in a hotel, the family was then allowed to live in a home thanks to a generous resident who gave them a place to stay for a couple months. Now they must move back into the home that is still being rebuilt.
“If you go to our house, it doesn’t look like it got burned because of how much we’ve advanced on it,” Karina explained. “We have two rooms in which we have placed sheet rock.”
They hope to restore their house the way it was before as it’s been their home for more than 18 years.
But with all efforts focused on the house, they haven’t been able to afford much else, let alone Christmas gifts. So the family now looks to the community for help with basic necessities, especially winter clothes.
This holiday season, Karina is asking the community for help with anything they can contribute. Karina said she and her family plan to use whatever help they receive from the community toward a new home and appliances as well.
“My son Abraham wasn’t able to find a jacket that fit him among the clothes that (were) donated to us,” she said, sharing the encouraging words she told Abraham about the scar he incurred from the fire.
“That is the scar that will remind you that you alerted your family — that you saved your family,” she told him.
To help, call the United Way of South Texas at (956) 686-6331 and inquire about this family and the Spirit of Christmas campaign. The Monitor has partnered with the United Way of South Texas to garner support for Rio Grande Valley families in need of monetary donations, or other items and gifts specified in this story.
