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Fire leaves Decatur mother and children homeless before Christmas
Aleisia Holt and her children woke up to the smell of smoke early Sunday morning. They were able to get out safely, but they lost everything in the blaze.
DECATUR, Ga. - An apartment fire has left a Decatur family without a home for the holidays.
Charred ornaments and melted plastic is all that's left of Aleisea Holt's Christmas tree.
A living room once filled with joy and warmth is now stripped of all happiness. Their nightmare started last Sunday, when the single mother and her children awoke to the smell of smoke.
"As soon as we woke up it was just burning and flames," Holt said. "It was very fast. I just smelled it and tried to get out as fast as we could."
She says firefighters told her it was an electrical fire that started in her sons' bedroom at the Austin Oaks complex on Glenwood Road in Decatur.
The family escaped, but they didn't have time to grab any belongings.
"It's hurtful because it was everything we had," Holt says. "We lost everything - their clothes, their shoes."
The apartment complex is providing temporary housing, but that's little comfort to the two young boys who can't grasp what happened.
"They don't understand. They want to be home. They keep talking about the Christmas tree and the fire," Holt said.
As for their mother, the safety of her family is a gift she will never take for granted.
"That's the best thing, that we made it out safely and the kids are OK," she said.
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