Gautier couple loses home in fire

GAUTIER, Miss. (WLOX) - The community of Gautier is pulling together in support of one family whose home went up in flames Friday afternoon around 12:30.

Sandra and Ronnie Warren married about six years ago. Together, they picked out their home on University Street the next day, where they lived until June 2.

“It was devastating, very devastating, to get here and see your house going up and smoke, everything you’ve worked for going up in smoke, losing everything,” Sandra told WLOX.

She was at work when she received a call from a friend saying her house was on fire.

“Everybody thought I was in there because I usually take a nap in the daytime, and I was at the barbershop when I got a call,” Ronnie said.

When they arrived, they could only watch as everything they had melted away.

“How the fire looked and how it started from the back, they said it probably was a shortage somewhere,” Robbie said.

Investigators and inspectors are still searching for answers as to how the fire started.

Luckily, no one was home when the flames overtook the property.

“I would come over here,” Sandra’s niece Danyale Breland said. “She would take care of me, feed me, and this house had a lot of memorable stuff in it, like, my, like, everything.”

Family, friends and neighbors united to help by creating a GoFundMe page.

Organizers said all the money donated will go straight to the couple for temporary housing costs, clothing and food expenses, as well as rebuilding efforts.

“Just before she got the call, we had a conversation in the office with another team member that was going through some things, and we were talking about how sometimes we don’t understand why things happen,” her friend and co-worker Carolyn Morrow said.

“I just thank God we’re alive,” Sandra added. “That’s the most important. And like she (Morrow) always tells me, trust the process. I can’t see it, but just trust God’s process. That’s what we’re doing.”

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