‘We lost everything.’ Local family trying to get back on their feet after fire destroys their home.

ABERDEEN — A local family had their lives change in an instant last month after a devastating house fire left them with no place to call home.

Nick and Jessica Sior have five children and have spent the past five years living in their 1,800-square foot home on one-acre in Aberdeen. On May 9, 2024, around 4 p.m., Jessica said her girls had recently gotten home from school when one of her daughters smelled something. They quickly realized there were flames coming out of the porch. The Sior’s put the fire out and called the internet company and asked them to come fix the cable that got burnt.

Jessica said they didn’t think anything of the small fire until 15-20 minutes later when all they could smell was something electrical.

“My husband is running through the house unplugging everything, seeing if he can find what the smell is (but) he can’t find nothing,” Jessica explained. “Not long after that, smoke started coming out of the registers in the ground, the heater ones. That’s when he said, ‘Everybody get out!'”

Jessica remembers her family running out of the house and once outside, they saw the left side of their home was “smoking.” They immediately turned off the main power, then Nick got the water spigot, turned the water on, pulled the paneling off and started spraying water while Jessica called 911.

“We lost everything in that house fire,” Jessica said. “When (officials) did the investigation on it (we were told) it had been smoldering under the house anywhere from six to twelve hours before it fully ignited.”

The Sior’s believe the wiring going from the breaker to the electric stove was most likely chewed by mice, causing the fire.

The day after the fire, the Sior’s went back to look at the damage and found the floors caved in throughout the house.

“The fridge had gone into the stove and caused a big hole in the kitchen,” Jessica recalled seeing. “Both the bathrooms and the master bedroom was a complete hole.”

Among the items lost in the fire were Nick’s mother’s ashes, all of Jessica’s products for her sublimation and vinyl business and their 14-year-old daughter’s PDM, which is a device used to help control her type 1 diabetes.

“I know we didn’t lose anybody but it’s a very traumatic thing that happened,” Jessica said. “We’re all struggling together.”

The family has been staying in a hotel room in Pocatello for over a month. They are hoping to one day return to their land and have a house on their property but it’s not clear when that will be. The Sior’s said they are “trying to live day-to-day right now.”

The couple encourages people to have working smoke detectors — the Sior’s said theirs did not go off — as well as fire extinguishers and to get your wiring checked out by a professional.

“We’re not the kind of people to ask for help so to have it all hit, it’s surreal,” Jessica mentioned. “You never ever, ever think it’s going to happen. You see it on t.v. or you hear about it and you don’t think it’s going to happen to you and then, when it does, it’s surreal. … Starting over is hard.”

A GoFundMe has been set up to help the family. To donate, click here.