The Caldor fires that were burning from August 2021 until October of the same year burned 221,835 acres in the Eldorado National Forest and other areas of the Sierra Nevada.
According to CALFire, more than 700 homes were affected by that fire, and, to this day, there are still many people who remain homeless, live in their cars, or rely on the kindness of friends and family.
One of the families that were affected by the wildfire was the Hatch family.
Single dad Eric Hatch and his four children, all minors, survived the fire but lost their home.
Since then, they had been living in tents for a little less than a year, only hoping that they could one day find a place to call home again.
In November 2021, one of Eric’s children, Layla, started a GoFundMe page hoping that they could raise enough money to get back on their feet again and, hopefully, find a new, safe, and warm place to live.
During their stay in the tents, they didn’t even realize how quickly the time passed because they had so much to think about and they had hard work to do in order to have a decent life in the miserable tent.
“Time flies when you are busy busy, you know. Fighting the weather most of the time. I’m trying to cook and yeah shower up and get them ready for school and [help them] do homework,” Eric Hatch told KCRA 3.
The children were busy with keeping themselves motivated to continue fighting for a better future, while they also tried to make sure they’d not fall behind in school.
In fact, they were putting so much effort into their daily activities that they’d often ignore the fact that they hardly even had their necessities covered at what they then called home.
“We don’t really have a bathroom. Showering is not easy and [the water] is not hot,” Layla told the news outlet.
But what kept them together was the fact that they had each other “no matter what”.
The family kept going like that for more than six months, but then one of Layla’s teachers intervened.
You see, the teacher noticed that the young girl would go around town looking for hotspots to make sure she’d have internet access to do her homework.
The teacher also pointed out that the student never stopped getting straight As, although she was facing a very hard time at home.
That’s why the teacher reached out to EmergencyRV, a charitable organization that was started in response to the deadly November 2018 Campfire, and the charity arranged for the Hatches to get a new RV.
When Eric and his children saw their new RV for the first time, they just couldn’t believe it was really happening.
They would finally have a place to call home again, and they wouldn’t need to be so worried all the time.
The family couldn’t be more grateful to all the people that contributed to changing their life.
It was definitely an emotional moment!
Watch the family’s reaction when they see their new home in the video below!
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