PLAINFIELD TOWNSHIP, Mich. — Brittany Ulanch and her three girls moved into their new home on Plainfield and Coit just four months ago. For the family, it was a fresh start.
“It was a start over for me and my girls after going through a divorce,” she said, “and it was a new beginning for us.”
Then, late in the evening on Jan. 30, Ulanch awoke to the smell of smoke.
“I thought somebody was having a bonfire,” she said. “So I went to go see and I saw smoke just kind of flowing outside.”
Ulanch and her three girls stumbled through the haziness to the stairs and eventually the door. In their pajamas, with just socks on their feet, they made it out of the home safe but scared. Ulanch said she doesn’t remember parts of the tense few moments.
“It’s sad to see everything you worked for gone in a split second,” said Ulanch, standing in front of the charred remains of the building.
But she knows they’re lucky. Ulanch’s neighbor, 71-year-old Steven Dood, died that night. Ulanch said Dood had grown up in the building and moved back only a short time before she and her family. He lost his wife to cancer not long before the fire.
“We got to know each other just through passing and talking and he would paint the hall and he got us matching doorbells for Christmas and would bake the kids cookies,” said Ulanch. “He was just a really, really nice man.”
Ulanch’s first priority after the fire was to make sure her kids had food and supplies for school – a request she says has been fulfilled overwhelmingly. Now, it’s a matter of rebuilding their lives.
“Towels, dishes, anything you can think of,” said Ulanch. “A toothbrush; it was just little things.”
Ulanch’s family has started a GoFundMe page to help with costs. But she says the intangibles have been more uplifting than anything money can buy.
“The three most valuable things that I can’t replace I got out,” Ulanch said through tears, “and those are my kids.”
