Fundraiser planned for family who lost home in April blaze

In the early morning hours of April 10, Misty Tyson was awakened by one of her dogs to a house engulfed in flames. She and her son Owen Schaefer, 11, escaped from the house with little more than their lives.

"We got the clothes we had on and our three dogs and that's all we got," Tyson said.

Misty and her husband Patrick Tyson, who was away from home working in the oil fields when the fire occurred, were leasing the house to own and didn't have renter's insurance. They lost everything.

Codi Cass, Misty's mother, is holding a fundraiser for the family this Saturday at Iliff community center in Iliff, Colorado from noon to 5 p.m. The event will include a meal for a $10 donation and a silent auction of items donated from businesses in the surrounding area. Most of the items came from business in Sterling but some Sidney establishments like Hair by Beth and the Coffee and Book Corner also made donations.

Their house was located on Colorado Road 50 between Sidney and Sterling in the Iliff area.

Although very little of material value was recovered from the fire, Tyson is thankful that she and her son made it out in time.

"We had two smoke alarms, neither of them ever went off," Tyson said.

On the night of the fire, it was snowing and bitter cold.

"The roads were so bad that it took them like 45 minutes to get there," Misty's mother, Codi Cass said.

Firefighters from Sidney, Peetz, Sterling and Crook fought the blaze for more than five hours, Tyson said.

She had taken her wedding ring off the night before and put it in the bathroom medicine cabinet. While the fire was burning, one of the firefighters asked Tyson if she knew the exact location of anything that he could save. She told him where her ring was and he rushed into that part of the house, which was totally engulfed in flames, to secure it.

"He came out and he had my wedding ring," Tyson said. "It was all black and I had to have it cleaned. Now I don't take it off at night anymore."

She also told the firefighters that she had a big tote of scrapbooks in the bedroom, so they broke out a window and recovered it for her. The pictures weren't melted, but they were extremely smoke damaged.

"So I have a tote of smelly scrap booking stuff and my wedding ring," Tyson said.

The Tyson family is currently staying with Misty's parents outside of Sterling. Patrick's three daughters McKenzie, 21, Malarie, 18 and Ashley Tyson, 13 live in Sidney most of the time but spend every other weekend and every other week during the summer with the Tysons.

People keep asking Cass what the Tysons need, and she has to tell them that they need everything.

"It was just really devastating to see what it did," Cass said. "They're kind of starting from ground zero again."

Cass and the Tysons are asking for donations of any kind.

"They don't have a towel, they don't have a plate, they don't have silverware," Cass said.

If you have an old chair that you don't like or old plates you don't use, please donate them, Tyson said.

The fire completely destroyed the house, and was ruled accidental undetermined because it wasn't safe for the fire fighters to go back into the house to investigate. It started in the attic by the chimney and the investigators were afraid if they went into the living room area, they would fall into the basement.

The family has received quite a few clothing donations, mostly from people working at Cabela's. The Red Cross in Sterling donated $700 for things like clothing and bedding right after the fire. Now they're mostly looking for household items. There are some things that they can never get back.

"My husband's a hunter and we had eight mounted deer heads and a bear rug and those things, you can't replace," Tyson said.

They also lost a flag that belonged to Patrick's deceased father who used to be in the Marines.

The worst part of the experience was when she could actually see the destruction caused by the fire, Tyson said.

"When the sun came up, I knew it wasn't gonna get better," she said.