Chatfield community picks up the pieces after weekend fire

(ABC 6 News) – Some Families in Chatfield are picking up the pieces after a fire engulfed an apartment building on Grand Street over the weekend, making the building now a total loss.

“Don’t give up hope. That’s the hardest part. Chatfield is such a great community, so when tragedy strikes, they’ve got your back. My husband and my daughter are all I have left. I lost my son, and now I lost my home, we can build a new life as long as we have each other,” Dody Perales, a Chatfield Resident said. “It sunk in like this isn’t a little fire, the entire building is on fire.”

“What is seeing all the destruction like for you?”

“It’s terrifying. Now just to see everything that happened is scary,” Joe Hintz, Chatfield Resident said.

According to the Chatfield Fire Department, they got here shortly after midnight. The fire was put out by 6 a.m.

Now all that’s left are the memories of what used to be in these eight apartments.

“I lost my son a year and a half ago. So I was able to get his urn and little sentimental things. We only have the clothes on our back,” Perales said.

And there’s a hero to this story, Lacey Manuel.

“We heard a banging on our door, it startled us,” Perales said.

“We heard our neighbor fall from this window here and hit the dish. We heard them screaming and yelling and said what is going on right now? Then they started screaming fire. Later we learned that they jumped out that window,” Hintz said.

“And there were no fatalities to your understanding?”

“No, we were all very lucky,” Hintz said.

The Chatfield Community is now picking up the pieces to move forward.

“You always see on the news everyone getting help. It’s great to see, but when its you, you feel great inside when everyone is reaching out and helping,” Hintz said.

The state fire marshal’s office is currently investigating this.

If you would like to help the people impacted by this fire, you can drop off donations to the Chatfield Lutheran Church.