Colorado family seeking help after losing everything in house fire
Thirty years of hard work put into a Commerce City home is now a pile of ashes, following a devastating fire.
"All of our memories are there. All the good memories, all the hard memories. The grandchildren growing up. It's everything," said Elizabeth Acker.
Acker and her partner, Roy Wells, spoke with CBS Colorado four days after the fire happened. According to the South Adams County Fire Department, the fire started just after 1 p.m. on May 31 and the cause is still under investigation.
"I smelled something horrible, so I jumped up, and I could see from that room on that side, I could see across through the living room, there was a fire," said Acker. "So my first reaction was get out. Get everybody out, get out get out."
Acker says the two of them were living with their grandchildren at the time the fire broke out. Two other people lived in a space behind the structure that burned down.
"We're in unknown territory," said Acker. "We would've never expected it."
Acker says they never would have expected something like this would happen so close to another tragedy in their family; the loss of her daughter, and her grandchildren's mother just two months prior.
"The 12-year-old has autism and so the thing that he does have, they're even more special to him than we can understand," said Acker. "They lost their mommy and then they got to watch everything else they had up in smoke. It's just devastating in my heart. That's not fair to them."
Despite the sight of charred books, clothes, bedding and toys, Acker and her family remain hopeful after losing everything.
"At least nobody got hurt and we just concentrated on that. That's really the thing," she said.
Now, they are working to get her grandchildren's life back on track by enlisting the public's help through crowdfunding to give them a home again.
"Everybody's been graciously trying to assist in the way that they can," she said. "The house, we considered it to be our legacy to our grandchildren."