“The whole house was Engulfed in flames”

The neighbors upstairs had a history of noise. One time, their boy tried to break open a frozen bottle of water by slamming it on the floor again and again until she went up there and complained.

So when the banging started, Sarah Parker, 22, didn’t think much of it. She was watching TV with her 2-year-old nephew, Devin, at her sister’s duplex apartment on Houston Street in Anderson Cove. It was two days before Christmas.

“They were being really loud and so I was like ‘That’s weird. I wonder why they’re being so loud?’” Parker said. “Even Devin was like, ‘I wish they’d stop.’”

The lights began to flicker and then she heard the neighbors’ smoke detector sound. It stopped after a few minutes.

“So it was going off and then I heard it shut off and so I’m like, ‘Oh, they got it taken care of,’” Parker said. “But in reality, it probably just melted.”

About 10 minutes after the banging started, someone came to her door.

“Not just knocking, like knocking worse than a cop, like punching the door,” Parker said.

She opened the door and standing before her was a man she’d never met. He was tall and thin with light blonde hair; he looked to be in his 30s, Parker said.

“He just screamed at me that ‘You need to get out of the house, it’s on fire,’” Parker said.

She went back into the house a bit frazzled, thinking it was probably just a small fire and she needed to leave as a precaution. Parker grabbed Devin and the remains of her nephew, Hendrix, who died in 2011 at 3 weeks old, and then left.

“As I was walking up the stairs, the whole house was engulfed in flames, like the whole house was on fire,” Parker said. “I was just sitting there like ‘Why didn’t somebody come and get me like 10 minutes ago?’”

The neighbors upstairs didn’t think anyone was home, Parker said.

It turns out, one of the fire was started by pot of oil cooking on the stove, according to officials.

“It was terrifying”

Shasta Hartford (Parker’s sister and Devin’s mother) was at a holiday party at the Baymont Inn & Suites on Kitsap Way when the fire started. She was with her boyfriend, Donovan Simms, and her roommates Jordyn Henning and Casey Smith, Sr. Henning has a 7-month-old daughter who was with Henning’s mother and grandmother at the time.

Hartford, 23, and Henning, 22, work at the Baymont as housekeepers. They’d been gone maybe 45 minutes when Simms, 23, received a call from a hysterical Parker.

“It was generally disbelief,” Simms said. “I stayed on the phone with her I’m pretty sure until we got in the car.”

Parker called Simms because he was the first person in her call logs. Hartford is happy she did.

“I’m glad she called Donovan instead of me because I freak out too, Donovan doesn’t freak out, he stays pretty calm,” Hartford said.

“She did really good. She got Devin out and she got my angel son’s ashes out. I’m eternally grateful for that.”

It was raining that night and in her rush to flee the house, Parker forgot shoes for Devin. She held him in her arms in the rain until some people from down the street took them in. They had been victims of a house fire, too, Parker said.

The good Samaritans declined to comment for this story.

The drive from the Baymont to Anderson Cove took about five minutes. Firefighters closed the street, so they parked a couple blocks away on Rainier Street.

“It was terrifying,” Hartford said. “All I wanted to do was get to him to make sure [Devin] was alright … and he was just sittin’ there eating chicken nuggets, happy as can be.”

Community support

Donations from the community are lifting the two families from the ashes.

Nearly $800 has been raised between gofundme.com accounts for Shasta and Jordyn.

Simms’ mother’s church in Louisiana is raising money and Devin’s father gave Shasta $600 and the Red Cross paid for them to stay at the Baymont until last Friday, Simms said.

The Baymont offered to let them stay until they got back on their feet, but Hartford said she’s staying with her sister now.

Henning and Smith, 36, are staying with Henning’s parents while they wait to hear back from an application they put in for a house.

“Casey, my daughter and I wouldn’t have clothes on our backs if it weren’t for the help we’ve received,” Henning said via text message. “And now when we get into a place she will have toys to play with as well. Everyone has been extremely generous.”

Also, an anonymous donor left a $100 check in a card at the front desk of the Baymont, Hartford said.

“All it said was ‘I was a fire victim too.’ And when I saw that it brought me to tears,” Hartford said. “People have been so great.”

All was not lost

The apartment was ruined by smoke and water used to put out the fire, and with it most of their belongings.

“You can always restart … It’s possible,” Simms said. “The human spirit is so elastic, you know, there’s so much pliability. So I think that everything is really gonna be good.”

Between the sudden death of her infant son three years ago and the loss of her home, Hartford has experienced a great deal of tragedy in a short period. But because of Devin, she doesn’t have a choice but to move forward, she said.

“I don’t have any option. I’ve got a 2-year-old that I need to provide for,” Hartford said. “He’s my world. And whatever I can do for him, I will.”

Inside the soaked apartment were Hartford’s Christmas presents for Devin. She’d spent months collecting them. Now it appeared they’d been lost.

As she was leaving to return to the Baymont, a firefighter approached her. He said they put the presents on top of furniture and then covered them with plastic to protect from water damage.

“I was crying and I went and I gave him a hug and he was like ‘Oh, no I’m all wet,’” Hartford said, smiling. “Like ‘Whatever. I don’t care—thank you.’”