KALISPELL — In early April, the Quality Inn Hotel in Kalispell caught on fire in early April, causing an estimated $3 million in damage.
But the owners of the hotel weren’t the only ones to take losses in the fire. One person who called the hotel their home for a few days tells her story.
“Yeah, that was crazy. It was insane. It started out as just a tiny little thing and then all of a sudden the whole building is collapsing in on itself,” said Brianna Wilson.
Everyone from the hotel was safely evacuated, but one family staying at the hotel lost everything.
“So they told us that we shouldn't grab anything. They kind of made it sound like it was gonna just be under control really quick. And so they were like 'we're gonna have you evacuate for now' — and then like...we didn't grab anything because we thought like it was gonna be under control," Wilson recalled. "Like there was gonna be, you know, some smoke things we might have to find a new motel but like, we didn't assume that like everything would burn."
Wilson and her family were staying at the Quality Inn after becoming homeless about a month ago, “The fire was like a cherry on top of a stress cake that had appeared in our lives."
They were staying in a room just ten doors down from where the fire started. While they are unsure if everything they owned burned, they believe anything left would be unsalvageable as the roof collapsed and smoke engulfed their room.
“It was more just like staring at it going is this really reality? It was just more of just like a heart wrenching just there it goes there goes everything kind of thing,” said Wilson.
Just one week after the hotel fire Wilson’s mom passed away from health complications, “I've never navigated the world without my mom. Not really sure how to do it."
Down on their luck, and the fire burning everything they had, the family is reaching out to the public for help to recover some of the things they lost in the fire.
“\You know, it was just one thing on top of another. We were bouncing from motel to motel this was the one we could afford. And then all of our stuff, everything that we had left was gone,” said Wilson.
If you’d like to help the family out you can donate to their GoFundMe account.
The fire was started during plumbing work that was being done at the hotel.
