<p>A Christmas Day blaze displaced a Whiteland family and claimed their pets, but the aftermath of the fire showcased the generosity of neighbors.</p><p>Cathy Spurlock had lived in her home in the 400 block of Springdale Drive for seven years, vowing to herself when she bought it with her late husband that it was her forever home.</p><p>Spurlock and her 19-year-old daughter were away having Christmas dinner at her son’s house in Greenfield when they got the call about the fire, she said.</p><p>On that phone call from her neighbor, Spurlock’s first thought was for her dogs. “Save my dogs,” Spurlock pleaded to the neighbor and to God.</p>[sc:text-divider text-divider-title="Story continues below gallery" ]<p>But it was too late for Spurlock’s three dogs and her daughter’s two pet rats, all of which died in the fire, their losses much harder to take than the loss of their possessions, she said.</p><p>"They were my babies," Spurlock said. </p><p>By the time Whiteland firefighters and mutual aid partners reached the scene, the fire was burning intensely, with flames showing from windows at the front of the house, said Eric Funkhouser, Whiteland fire chief.</p><p>Temperatures were in the teens when the fire broke out about 5:35 p.m. Friday, making conditions challenging. The first hydrant they tried was frozen and resisted efforts to unthaw it, so firefighters had to find the next closest one and roll out about 1,000 feet of hose to get water on the home, Funkhouser said. </p><p>With the long hose and help from Bargersville, Franklin, Greenwood and New Whiteland firefighters, they got the blaze under control in about 25 minutes and extinguished it in about 45. The cold complicated their efforts, but they pushed through, he said.</p><p>“It seems like it always happens on the coldest nights. It is harder for that reason — you’re trying to get water and you have to worry about it freezing,” Funkhouser said. “It also takes its toll on firefighters. They’re getting drenched on the inside and they have to go outside and their gear freezes … We had people slipping and sliding on the ice outside.”</p><p>The fire touched every room in the house and crept into the attic, making the home will be a total loss, he said. </p><p>If the fire had broken out during Christmas dinner or later that day, the results could have been much more tragic, Spurlock said.</p><p>“I would have been asleep right where the worst of it was,” she said. “God’s hand was in it. I normally have Christmas dinners at my house. But this is the first Christmas for my son in his new house so he wanted us to come there.”</p><p>With help from her family and the community, Spurlock and her daughter have a place to stay and most of their immediate needs met, she said.</p><p>Through her neighbors and the town’s Facebook group, she has received clothes and personal items to get through the initial phase of the disaster. The community’s response underscored for Spurlock how generous Whiteland can be, she said.</p><p>“To be honest, when I read some of them (the comments on Facebook) it made me cry. I couldn’t imagine people being so caring,” Spurlock said.</p><p>A few still unmet needs right now are plus-size clothes for her daughter, gas money and a vest for her surviving service dog, she said. To help, reach out to Spurlock on Facebook messenger.</p><p>Faced with tremendous loss and her life thrown into chaos during the holidays, she still trusts everything will fall into place.</p><p>“It has been rough but God helps you through. I can see his hand even in all of this,” Spurlock said. “Nobody knows why that was allowed to happen, but I trust him there was a reason.”</p>
