MEDINA, Ohio — It’s a somber day for the Cherney and Terry family as the house they called home for a decade is now just a charcoal memory.
Paul Terry said his family was fast asleep as he watched a movie early this morning.
“I smelled some kind of a burning plastic or chemical smell, and then I got up to investigate it,” he recalled. “Once I got into the hallway, I heard the crackling and I turned the corner into the living room and the bay window was all orange, covered in flames.”
Terry said he quickly tried to knock down the fire, but it was too strong.
“[I] started yelling, ‘Fire!’, and ‘Get everybody out!,’” Terry stated.
Terry managed to safely get his significant other and their two children out of the home.
“Thank God we got the kids out,” Terry said.
The Lafayette Township Fire Department was dispatched to his home on Ryan Road around 4 a.m. on Wednesday.
“We arrived on scene in about six minutes and the house was fully involved,” said Lafayette Township Fire Chief Brian Cavanaugh.
The nearest source of water for firefighters was a pond on the property where the fire broke out.
Cavanaugh said it took his team an hour to put the fire out.
“They have some salvageable things in there, but it was a total loss of everything: their clothing, their belongings, their personal items. It’s an unfortunate, tragic thing for the family,” Chief Cavanaugh added.
The cause of the fire is unknown but under investigation. It’ll be at least a week before the investigation is complete.
“A lot of times the fire is so intense initially that debris and stuff fall from the ceiling or the upper levels, and then they continue to smolder as the day goes on,” Chief Cavanaugh explained. “They heat up more and then they start a little tiny fire that we need to put out with a water can. That’s what we're doing right now. We’re just going around with the water can, making sure that all those hot spots are contained.”
Chief Cavanaugh said there were still a few hot spots throughout the home, but the fire department had contained it by late afternoon.
As for the family, they’re far from done with picking up the pieces.
“We worked 10 years with our own business. [We] started from nothing and got to here in Medina, good schools. Now we're back to nothing and we need a place to stay. I don't know how we're going to get that,” Terry explained.
Not only is it a mystery of where they’ll temporarily stay before rebuilding or finding a new home, but the family is on the search for their missing pets.
A total of six animals were inside the home at the time of the fire: three dogs and three cats.
Unfortunately, the family found one dog deceased. They’ve accounted for a second dog, but the third is still missing.
The missing dog is a gray and brown Beagle mix named Monkey. She’s about 10 pounds in weight.
One cat, Misty, is gray. Another cat, Giggi, is white with a touch of gray and brown. The third cat, Chocolate, is a gray tabby.
The family has now set out food on their front steps in hopes the four animals unaccounted for will come home.
“We’re feeling very upset and just empty,” Kim Cherney told me. “You don't realize the struggles. You see it on TV and you're like, ‘Oh it'll never happen to me.’ It happened.”
Terry and Cherney said they’ve lost everything from phone chargers to newly opened Christmas gifts for their two kids.
“The toys my kids got; they lost everything. They lost the computer, the Barbie dream house, the Barbies, all of my son’s collected trucks and cars,” Cherney said with tears swelling in her eyes.
Terry and Cherney said they’re in dire need of clothes. They also need adult diapers for a loved one they are looking after.
The family has started a GoFundMe, and over 100 people have already donated, but they're still far from their goal.
“We're going to pay it forward. This was a very humbling experience,” Cherney said. “We always gave back like we've always been givers. Now we're going to be giving back when it comes to fires.”
Terry said it’s been amazing to see the beauty in humanity through a tough situation.
I asked Terry and Cherney if they have hope for a better tomorrow. They said, “Yeah, from all the support and love from the community, my family, the amount of strangers that reached out to me in the restaurants, offering us food, and everyone looking for our animals, you can't ask for much more.”
If you want to donate to Terry and Cherney’s family, CLICK HERE.
