A family of three, along with their three dogs and three cats, are displaced after their home caught on fire west of downtown Hollister the morning of June 12.
Shyliene Days, who owns the now heavily damaged home with her husband Allan, said nobody was home at the time of the blaze, and their dogs were outside. Two of the family’s five cats died due to the fire, which could have been much worse if neighbors hadn’t called emergency services.
“We’re fortunate to have amazing neighbors,” Days said.
She added the dogs were “OK, just shaken” by the time the fire was extinguished.
Firefighters responded to the home about 9am, and were able to control the flames by about 9:35am, Hollister Fire Chief Jonathan Goulding said. The fire started in the kitchen and the cause is under investigation.
Days and her husband were both at work when the fire started—Syliene in Morgan Hill and Allan in Soledad. Both began receiving alerts on their remote in-home camera system when their smoke alarms began signaling, Shyliene said. A co-worker of Allan’s was in the area at the time, and was asked to stop by the home to see what was happening.
As Shyliene was getting ready to leave work to check on the emergency, she learned that her neighbors had already called 911, and police and firefighters were on the scene in Hollister.
“They were able to put it out in about 25 minutes,” she said.
Days said most of the damage is from smoke and confined to the front of the house. Two bedrooms were “completely spared,” likely because the rooms’ doors were closed. Firefighters had punched holes in the ceiling of the third bedroom to control the blaze, resulting in a blanket of insulation covering the interior.
The family expects to be displaced for about a year as investigators and insurance people sort through the extent of the damage. Days said they are currently staying at her mother’s home in Gilroy.
The couple purchased the Hollister home in 2019, and have lived there with Allan’s teenage son. It was the couple’s first time owning a home.
Two friends of Shyliene’s have organized a fundraiser on gofundme. Funds collected from the campaign will be donated to the family to purchase pet food, clothing, kitchen supplies and other items they might need “as they look toward this long road of recovery.”
The fundraising page notes that Allan is a “proud veteran.” Shyliene said he served in the U.S. Navy. He is currently a corrections sergeant at Salinas Valley Prison.
Shyliene is an alumnus of Live Oak High School and has worked at Nob Hill Foods in Morgan Hill for 30 years—“always giving so much of herself to her community,” says the gofundme page.
Shyliene said she was not aware of the gofundme campaign when she was contacted earlier this week. She confirmed the page’s organizers—Christina Wegner and Janessa Montanino—are her friends.
“Thanks to alert neighbors and the quick response of the local fire department, the whole house was not lost, but the damage remains severe. Many items were not salvageable due to fire and smoke damage,” says the gofundme page, which had raised $1,800 by June 18.
