Pauline Woolley holds her 4-year-old daughter, Zanae, on Wednesday. She talked about the fire in their North Bend home on Aug. 3. The blaze destroyed almost all of their belongings. With the generous support of the local community, the family members are on their way to getting back on their feet. World Photo by Lou Sennick

NORTH BEND — It was the morning after her niece’s bachelorette party in Portland, when Pauline Woolley’s nephew called.

As she pulled into a gas station she considered ignoring the cell phone. For some reason she changed her mind and answered.

“Aunt Pauline, your house is on fire!” Toby Ridenour yelled.

“I told him to knock it off,” Woolley said.

But Toby repeated himself. “Your house is on (expletive) fire!”

She could hear her daughters crying in the background. And then Toby told her that her son Zack, 14, was still inside.

“I was five hours away and there was nothing I could do,” Woolley said.

Confused, distraught, Woolley helplessly ran around her car after learning the news. A friend pushed her into the back seat, buckled her in and her niece jumped into the driver’s seat. They took off.

“It was the worst five hours of my entire life,” Woolley said.

In North Bend, Toby, 17, stood outside of the one-story rental house at 2715 11th St., as Zack tried to contact 911. The boys had misplaced the cordless phone.

Earlier that morning, the boys and Woolley’s daughters, Zoey, 9, and Zanae, 4, watched movies in separate rooms. The teens paused their film and walked through Zack’s bedroom, where he had lit several candles, and into the garage to find a snack in the second fridge. Five to 10 minutes after they sat back down, Zoey came into the room. Something smelled like it was burning.

The fire alarm went off.

“I opened the door and there was a huge inferno engulfing my room,” Zack said. “Heat just hit my face.”

The following moments were like something out of a Charlie Chaplin film. Toby grabbed a pitcher full of water to toss on the flames, but spilled most of it as he ran down the hallway. Zack called 911 from a land line as black smoke filled the house. He then hit the ground and crawled his way out of the house. A neighbor tried to help the kids and began breaking windows in hope of putting out the fire with a garden hose. Except someone had cut the hose a few months prior.

The North Bend Fire Department put the fire out in about 10 minutes. But the family lost nearly everything.

“It was hard,” Zoey said, as she sat next to her mother and sister in their new home. “All my special things were gone. The only thing saved in my room was a ship in a bottle my daddy got me.”

A volunteer from the American Red Cross provided the Woolleys with a three-day stay at a local hotel and a pre-paid Master Card to purchase necessities.

Charity

While the Woolleys looked for a new home, members of their parish at the North Bend Methodist Church began to make calls to other churches and civic groups to get furniture, clothing and school supplies for the family.

Pastor Jerry Steele said his church also provided some monetary assistance. It was the right thing to do.

“Why wouldn’t we? They were in need. Isn’t that what a church is about?” Steele said. “By serving one another, we are serving Christ.”

Overwhelmed by the community’s response, the Woolleys said they are grateful for all they’ve been given and plan to pay it forward.

 “Maybe I can pass on the good that people have done for us,” Pauline’s husband, Scott Woolley, said. “It’s just amazing what people do in somebody else’s time of need.”

No insurance

Two weeks prior to the fire, Pauline and Scott had the paperwork for renters insurance. They talked about it, but the uncompleted packet burned with the house.

“It was one of those things put on the back burner,” Pauline said.

Scott, 38, who was working at the time of the blaze, said he finds the situation ironic.

“I’m not really tearing myself up over it. That’s the way the ball bounces,” he said.

On Thursday afternoon, Pauline Woolley said she signed up for renters insurance for the family’s new home on Oak Street.

A Coos County native, Scott said he heard from an insurance adjuster, who said the family may get a $100,000 bill for the damage.

“Right now I’m not really worried about it, because there are a lot more important things to be worrying about besides what the insurance company is going to do to me,” Scott said.

Looking forward

Walking through the ruined husk of their former home, glass and charred carpeting crunching under Zack and Pauline’s feet, Pauline said she wouldn’t move back into the house even if it were repaired.

“It will be too hard for the kids,” she said, explaining the girls have been inconsolable at times.

Although she doesn’t say it in so many words, it’s difficult for her, too.

“It hurts. This was our life,” Pauline said, as tears filled her dark brown eyes. “When I see it, it’s overwhelming.”

But she realizes that material possessions are a minor loss compared with what could have happened.

“It’s brought us closer and made us realize, you know what?” she said. “All that stuff we were working for — it didn’t matter, because we had each other.”