Neighbors support victims of house fire near Lyons – Boulder Daily C…

In the wake of a fire that destroyed a home near Lyons, community members are banding together to help ease their neighbors’ loss.

A GoFundMe campaign created by a nearby resident last week, just days after the house fire, has already raised more than $15,000 in donations from other neighbors, friends and former residents of the neighborhood. The money benefits the Cross family, who lost nearly all of their personal belongings, as well as their two dogs, in the fire.

“Your first instinct is you want to make it better,” said Gayle Gordon, who lives down the street from the Crosses and helped promote the campaign with her husband, Ken Feldman. “I think that’s how we all feel in the neighborhood. The last thing we want them to feel is that they’re alone in this.”

On April 13, Aaron and Maria Cross, along with their teenage daughter, were away from their home on Longmont Dam Road when a fire broke out inside their house. Fire crews worked through the night to contain and ultimately extinguish the flames, the cause of which still hasn’t been determined.

“They’re very resilient,” Gordon said of the family. “I can’t even imagine the range of emotions they’re going through.”

Regina Cleveland, who created the GoFundMe campaign, has lived in the neighborhood off and on since the 1970s. She said she’s been blown away by the campaign’s success, even as another GoFundMe campaign for the family, started by Aaron Cross’ coworkers at Ball Aerospace, is close to hitting $10,000 as of Wednesday.

Both Cleveland and Gordon have known the Crosses since they moved to the neighborhood in 2013, describing the family as caring and giving. They both consider the cluster of roughly 30 homes along Longmont Dam Road, located northwest of Lyons in unincorporated Boulder County, a family.

“We have each others’ keys, we all have each others’ emergency numbers,” Cleveland said. “And it’s really comforting to know that someone’s looking out for you.”

Cleveland pointed to the Marshall Fire as a recent event that showed everyone, not just residents of mountain communities, the wreckage fires can bring to homes.

“I feel like the Marshall Fire was kind of a milestone in terms of disasters in Boulder County, and I feel like a lot of people looked at that and maybe for the first time understood the real horror of a house fire,” she said. “So, I think that builds empathy.”

Maria Cross said her family, which is currently staying at a hotel in Lyons, would like to continue living in the Longmont Dam Road neighborhood going forward.

“We’ve just been overwhelmed by the generosity and love and support that’s been shown to us by our friends, family, neighbors, coworkers and community,” she said.