Morris family safe, recovering after Monday morning fire

Andy and Kala Bormet, and the rest of their family, which includes six kids, four dogs, several cats and two guinea pigs, are recovering after a fire on Monday morning at their home on Lake Drive in Morris.

Andy and Kala Bormet met with Operation St. Nick’s Guy Christensen to accept a $5,000 donation on Friday morning that will go toward whatever they need to recover.

The Bormets’ initial feeling at around 1 a.m. Monday morning was annoyance. Juniper, a puppy they got in June, wouldn’t stop barking from her bed in the laundry room. Her barking riled up the rest of the dogs, and Andy Bormet got up to take all four out, assuming that was the problem.

Instead, a fire had started above their garage, and there was smoke coming in around the garage door.

“Rex, our oldest dog, nudged my 16-year-old awake,” Kala Bormet said. “He went back to sleep, and then everything got chaotic. The dogs get everyone awake and if it weren’t for them, I don’t know if we all make it out.”

Kala Bormet said their neighbors had been throwing rocks at the windows, trying to get the family awake, too.

Andy Bormet said he was able to go back in for the two guinea pigs, and they already had two of the cats out of the house by the time the firefighters got there. The firefighters were able to rescue the other five cats.

“Once I got out of the house with the crate, and I saw how bad the fire was, I don’t remember anything else,” Andy said. “It was like 10 minutes later, however long later, my heart dropped to my stomach. I didn’t know what I did with them. I went back to get them right as the firefighters broke out the back window.”

The Bormets said their neighbors were a great help. One let them put three of the dogs in the garage while they situated themselves, and Juniper went into the other backyard. Another neighbor kept the cats in their basement, and another neighbor took in the kids for the night.

“They just stepped up,” Kala Bormet said. “Everyone asked us what they could do, but so many asked, and we didn’t know what our next steps were. We were just so lost with everything, and family, friends, my coworkers, Andy’s coworkers, the schools, their sports teams, and they just rallied around us.

“It’s been the one thing keeping us sane since all of this happened. We have support, love and prayers, and everyone’s willing to chip in and help us find some normalcy out of this.”

Andy Bormet said right now still is a difficult time for the kids as they try to understand what happened, but they try their best to focus on the positives: Everyone is alive, and the animals are alive.

The fire department made it to the fire at around 1:25 a.m. Monday morning and located a heavy volume of fire in the garage, Wiechen said. They were able to account for the home’s occupants before attacking the fire.

There were many agencies on-scene to help knock down the fire and more that manned the fire station, Wiechen said. The garage side of the home is a total loss, but firefighters stopped the fire from getting to the living portions of the home, he said.

There still is extensive water and smoke damage, and the home is uninhabitable.

How to help

Operation St. Nick, which is helping the family, is a nonprofit organization founded by Joe Schmitz. It hosts an annual radio auction during the Christmas season every year, helping families in need around the holidays and again in June when it hosts its Military Program.

In recent years, Operation St. Nick also has stepped in to aid families in need after disasters like fires.

The Bormet family also is raising money via GoFundMe at gofundme.com/f/rebuilding-hope-for-morris-family-of-8-after-house-fire.