Most weeks, several times a week, we report on house fires in our area. Last year, there were more than 12-hundred in the state. Affected by every one of those house fires is a family, who has to deal with what the fire leaves behind.

While the circumstances surrounding every house fire are different, so are the changes it brings to each family who's had to experience one.

We met a family in Stockton Springs who lost everything the day their house burned down in January. The Temple family tells us what happened that day, has changed them.

Jay and Leanne Temple are starting a new life.

They live in a rented house, close to family, and say their two girls, 10-year-old Destiney and 12-year-old Sierra, are doing well.

They weren't home the day this happened. Leanne was in the hospital with pancreatitis. A friend called to tell them their house was on fire.

Jay rushed over.

"You could start to see the smoke, and I mean, there was no question where it was coming from. It was just black, thick, and I pulled onto the road and saw all the fire departments and everything. So I got out of the truck and started to walk up the driveway and there was so much going on nobody really thought anything of me walking up there. And I saw the house and I knew none of my animals made it, so I just turned around and left," Jay says.

The family lost their three dogs and pet birds in the fire.

"You think about a fire and what happens in a fire, and it was very hard at first for all of us to cope with losing the animals. And not just losing them, but the way we lost them," Leanne says.

One pet survived.

"They were lifting the roof, which I guess was still on fire. When they lifted it up, the cat came running from underneath the roof," Leanne says.

All their belongings were lost, including antiques the children had been collecting, and Leanne's wedding dress. They didn't have renter's insurance.

"Everything I had before that day is gone," Jay says.

"If you think about everything you've ever collected in your whole life, from seashells you've picked up on vacation to my engagement ring, which I'd taken off to have sized," Leanne says.

But, they say within hours, something started happening.

"It's amazing. Total strangers showed up, with boxes of food," she says.

They say for more than a month, donations poured in every day.

"Everything from the day of that fire on was because of the town. The churches, the red cross, my employers, the school system stepped right up and helped out," Jay says.

People put dishes on their shelves, art on their walls, even a new engagement ring on Leanne's finger. Everything in this house is donated.

"Everyone that we work with has just been so amazing, and the local churches and just total strangers. I couldn't thank anybody enough who've helped not only us but anybody who's ever helped anybody in this situation," Leanne says.

Within a week, they were moved in to their new place.

"We wouldn't be anywhere if it wasn't for what everybody's done," Leanne says.

"The town made it such a way that when we moved in here, there was no digging out of a hole. We came in here, and we were square. We could just press on and move on," Jay says.

The Temples tell us they're also proud of their children, who they say haven't complained once about the things they've lost.

"You learn that the main thing is that family is more important than anything else," Destiney says. "That's right, it's not the toys, it's not the Wii," says her mom.

"It's not DVDs or anything like that. It's family," Destiney says. "It's having your family together."

They say while the memory of the fire is always there, every day, it gets a little better.

"Me and my wife decided that the fire was kind of a starting point. That everything that had happened before that fire didn't really matter," Jay says. "And in some ways it was a blessing, because we're one of the few families that can say, we got a second start."

***

Tomorrow night, we'll talk about the first few days after a house fire, and how the Red Cross and other organizations are involved in those initial hours, helping families like the Temples find shelter, food and clothing.

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