ENTERPRISE, Utah — A family of nine saw their home and Christmas go up in flames early Thursday in the rural town of Enterprise. But even in their darkest moments, the family believes they still have everything that matters.
Keya Tesh had already bought all her presents for her six kids and stashed them away before her home was gutted in the massive blaze that has dimmed their holiday light.
"When I hit my pillow or when I'm alone with my fiance, I can cry and let out the anger and the sadness and the hurt and the devastation and just every emotion I'm feeling. But when I'm around my kids, I try to be strong and let them know it's just material items," she said.
The fire is still under investigation, but Tesh said it started around an outlet where she had a Keurig coffee maker plugged in.
"I went down to our local grocery store to go pick up some donuts, came back," she shared. "Five minutes later, I have neighbors rushing my kids to next door, grabbing my animals, telling me the front of the house is on fire, get us out, get the fire department here."
The house was already boarded up on Friday, with the smell of smoke and black ash mixing with frost on the porch. Inside is much worse.
Of all her children, ages 2 through 16, the fire has been especially hard on Tesh's three-year-old daughter.
"She's autistic, non-verbal, she suffers from periodic seizures, things like that. So this is a huge hit for her, I believe, more than the others because she needs the stability, the consistency, and this has been her home since we brought her home from the hospital, and now it's just gone," Tesh said.
People who know the family say they are the most giving people they know and hope the community rallies to give back to them. But Kaya says she and her family, staying temporarily at her mother-in-law’s apartment, are just in need of basic necessities and already have a Christmas gift: Their family’s survival.
A GoFundMe page has been created to help the family during its time of need.
"It was just a house," she said. "It was just stuff. Home is where my family is.
"Because of Christmas, we always want the newest iPhone or the newest computer or the newest PlayStation or things like that. And this was very humbling for us to realize that family is what matters, and we have that. So everything else will come in time."
