Blazes and blessings
Jeff Lyon's truck was destroyed in the fire that also engulfed his home on Thanksgiving morning. (Courtesy photo)
Linda Spiller of Post Falls gives her friend Wanda Lyon a squeeze on the shoulder during lunch Tuesday in the Rathdrum Senior Center, where Lyon is head cook. (DEVIN WEEKS/Press)
DEVIN WEEKS/Press Wanda Lyon stands near what remains of her Rathdrum home as she recalls how she and her family narrowly escaped the fire that left them homeless Thanksgiving morning.
RATHDRUM — A friend placed her hand on Wanda Lyon’s shoulder during lunch in the Rathdrum Senior Center.
“I can’t believe your house burned down. And on Thanksgiving, too,” said Linda Spiller, who has known Lyon for about three years.
“But we have so much to be thankful for,” Lyon responded, sincere and sweet.
The friends hugged for a moment. Tears sprang to Spiller's eyes as she shared with Lyon that her own family lost homes in the Paradise fires in 2018.
“I know how horrible it is,” she said to Lyon.
Wanda, her husband, Jeff, and their adult daughter, Loretta, who has special needs, barely escaped a pellet stove fire that engulfed their home early Thanksgiving morning. Their cat, Burton, who never usually bothered them in the middle of the night, was the one who alerted them to the fire.
“I smelled smoke,” Wanda said.
“If the cat wouldn’t have woken us up, we wouldn’t be here,” Jeff said.
Although Burton didn’t survive the fire, he went out a hero by making sure his family did.
“We call him our angel,” Wanda said.
Before visiting the senior center, where Wanda works as the head cook, the couple visited their ravaged home on Tuesday for the first time since the fire happened.
The family escaped with literally the clothes on their backs. Wanda said the embers that blew from the stove through a pipe to the outside caught a box on fire, which also caught Jeff’s truck on fire. The wind fanned the flames, ultimately destroying the house and the truck.
Once Burton woke them up, they smelled the smoke and ran.
"I had slippers on, jogging pants and an old jacket that wouldn’t zip up," Jeff said. "It was 10 degrees out and the wind was blowing."
As they watched the manufactured home where they had lived for 33 years burn to the ground, firefighters on scene gave them everything they had on hand.
"They pooled together and gave us $200 out of their pockets on Thanksgiving Day," Wanda said. "That was the very beginning of such a wonderful, wonderful community out here that has helped us. It's been very overwhelming to us. People have been so generous and kind and giving."
Another blessing came to them when about 50 people from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints spent a few hours to help clear the house once it was safe.
"That itself was just amazing to us, the way they pitched in and helped us,” Wanda said. "Whatever was in there was pretty water damaged or smoke damaged. I really lost pretty much everything."
Help has come in other forms — gift cards from friends and family members, donations from the seniors in the center, clothing to replace what they've lost, a niece and nephew with kids who have offered a place to crash when they're unable to stay in a hotel.
"It's amazing to see what people have done," Jeff said. "They’ve stepped up and got us clothes. We lost everything."
For 20 years, Wanda has served as a crossing guard for a Rathdrum elementary school. Jeff works in Spokane and grew up next door to where their house is. Loretta helps her mom in the senior center. Loretta has also been active in Special Olympics, winning dozens of medals and even competing in Greece when she was younger.
"It's been very hard for her," Wanda said of her daughter. "She’s lost all of her animals this year. We had to put her Pomeranian down in August or September; she got super sick and we had to put her to sleep. Then (Loretta) had just gotten her chickens up and running, and with this fire, we had to rehome them, but the people that took them said come spring, when we get a new place, she’ll get them back. And we lost our cat the morning of our fire. That was pretty devastating for her. Our animals are kind of like therapy for her."
The entire neighborhood, if not the whole town, knows the Lyon family. With no insurance, they plan to rebuild, which requires them to finance an entirely new home at close to $110,000, but through these difficult times they're just grateful to those who are willing to help.
“I hired her because she loves so big,” Rathdrum Senior Center director Rhonda Story said of Wanda.
"She’s loved by so many people here," Story said. "There’s something to be said about who they are in the community. Lakeland is supporting them, the firefighters, the senior center, the church. Just the integrity of their family and what they’ve done in the community. It comes back. When you give, you get back twice as much as you give."
A fire fund for the Lyon family has been set up at Columbia Bank at 6878 W. Highway 53, Rathdrum.
Info: 208-687-2028