‘True Community’ — Family speaks out about losing their home in Millcreek apartment fire

MILLCREEK, Utah (ABC4) — One family who lost everything in the Millcreek fire that burned at least 24 units at the Willow Glen Apartments is speaking out, sharing their experience of evacuation, loss, and community.

Amanda Smith and her husband Taylor Smith spoke to ABC4.com. They said that they lost their home in the fire, but they were able to get themselves, their kids, and their dogs out safely.

“I remember, I was smelling something, and I was like ‘what is that burning smell?’ and I thought, ‘did I turn on the oven?'” Amanda said.

The oven was not on, and that’s when her husband told her that there was a fire and they needed to get out. She ran to the back bedroom to look.

“Our apartment faces the hill, and you can literally just see the flames, and so we grabbed everything. We grabbed the kids, we grabbed the dogs, and we headed out.”

Taylor started knocking on other people’s doors to try to get them out, she said, and he also called 911.

“I called it in, and I ran out to go knock on doors and say ‘There’s a fire!’ and then our landlord’s fiancé came out running, he was a marine. Once a marine, always a marine” Taylor said. The fiancé asked Taylor if everyone was out of the building, and Taylor told him to go get people out of the other building. “We just divided and conquered,” Taylor said. “We’re so glad that our senior neighbors were able to get out.”

Amanda said that she started taking her kids and the dogs over to the church.

“I looked back, and I saw the apartment on fire, and I thought, at least I don’t have laundry to do,” she said, laughing, before looking like she was about to cry.

She called the local bishop, and he came and unlocked the church doors to let them, their kids, and other people inside the church.

“It happened so fast,” she said.

“It was really quick,” Taylor agreed. “I remember getting you guys out, and I said, ‘I need to get the keys, we’re gonna need vehicles.'”

Their apartment is gone. “They let us know that the two back buildings, all the apartments are gone,” Amanda said, and Taylor added that the roof collapsed on the southwest building.

“We don’t physically have a home, but we’ve had so many community members, so many friends reach out, saying ‘Do you need a place to stay?'” Taylor said. “Right now, our home is a little on the move, but with the friends and family that we have that said, ‘What can we do to help you, how can we help you restart, how can we help you rebuild your life?'” He grew emotional.

Amanda said that one of her coworkers met her and brought her a change of clothes, drinks, and chargers so they could charge their phones.

“Big shout out to my theatre peeps in the community,” Taylor said. He said that as soon as he called in to let them know that he wouldn’t make it to rehearsal tonight, they set up a GoFundMe within two minutes.

“I can never…” He grew emotional once again. “I can never repay them enough for that, and that’s just true community and true friendship and true love right there.”

“Even though our physical stuff is gone, we still have each other,” he continued, wrapping an arm around Amanda. “We still have our kids, we still have our dogs. We’re very, very, very fortunate in that. Material things can be replaced. We’ll work from the ground up if need be, but we have a home, even if it’s not physical.”

“We’ve got a home with our family and our friends, and we’re very, very grateful for that,” Taylor concluded.