Neighbor rescues sleeping family of 4 from burning home in west-central Minnesota
"There's a fire in the house, get your kids out now!"
Those were the frightening words a family of four in Roseland, Minnesota woke up to on Monday as their house was burning down with them asleep inside.
Their neighbor saw the flames shooting out of the house when he rang their doorbell furiously to warn them about the blaze. Out of the house came Caitlyn Beckmann, her husband Levi – wearing only his boxer shorts – their two kids and dog.
"Three minutes to five minutes later and my daughter would've been in the hospital or dead, or we all would've been if he hadn't woke us up," Beckmann said of her neighbor's quick-thinking.
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Beckmann had just put her 2-year-old son and 3-year-old daughter down for a mid-morning nap. Levi was already asleep after working overnight and she decided to get in a quick nap before she was scheduled to work the first of her two jobs later that day.
"We ran," she said after the neighbor woke them. "Our kitchen was kind of smoky, but we had just woken up and we were wondering what was going on. When we got into the entryway, it was brown, black and grey.
"We turned around and ran. I grabbed my son, my husband grabbed my daughter."
Their fire alarms didn't go off until they had made it outside.
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They got out and were able to move their vehicles from the driveway while the neighbor took care of their kids. But they weren't able to save anything from inside the house or garage.
"Everything is gone," Beckmann said. "Everything is black and toasted and you can't tell what anything is."
As well as everything in their home, the family also lost their boat, a Harley Davidson, a lawnmower and a deep freezer in the garage.
The only things they've been able to salvage were two wallets, a pair of glasses, Caitlyn's wedding dress, one cell phone, their kids' piggy banks, and some sandbox toys and a jungle gym that were outside.
According to the West Central Tribune the cause of the fire is under investigation, but Beckmann believes the house caught fire from a bucket of ashes leftover from leaves she had raked, burned and doused earlier.
2 homes burned down in the area on Monday
The Beckmanns weren't the only resident to lose their home to a fire on Monday.
Another home, about 30 miles east of theirs, was torched after a controlled burn reignited in Danielson Township. Embers were blown towards the house, lighting it on fire and burning it to the ground.
Fire danger was high on Monday, according to the DNR. You can stay up to date with daily fire danger condition reports on this page from the DNR.
