Lake Stevens, wash. – A man from Lake Stevens is in need of a new home after his RV burned down with three of his dogs on January 1st.
Brett Pierce was devastated and hospitalized after the event due to already ongoing medical conditions and stress.
He’s recovering at Swedish Hospital in Seattle. He was in tears on Wednesday when he talked about the loss of his three puppies that died in the fire. He said he’d gone out to do laundry when the fire broke out and returned to devastation.
“All there was a shell, it was just, and I couldn’t believe it. it was a burned-out shell,” said Pierce.
For Pierce, who spoke to us from his hospital bed, heartbreaking images, like those pictured below, come flooding back like a wave of grief.
“I jumped out and yelled for my puppies and the puppies didn’t come, because I knew I was hoping some way they may have made it out because I wasn’t able to take in the fact my RV was burned,” he said.
Pierce said he’d taken his dog Sunday with him that morning. Her puppies, named Luke, Duke and Snoopy, were left behind. They are pictured below.
“I knew they didn’t get out because they didn’t come running to me,” said Pierce. “I fell to the ground and I just cried.”
His medication was incinerated in the fire and his health worsened as he lived out of his car on Sunday. When he finally went to the hospital, he called long-time friend and outreach worker Roger Evans of Monroe.
“If Sunday would have been in the RV, I don’t know if he would be here,” said Evans. Sunday is pictured below.
Evans works as the Outreach Director of New Hope Fellowship Church in Monroe. He helped Brett before when he was experiencing homelessness. He also talked to Brett weekly.
“Imagine going to the store, and you come home and your whole house has burned down, you lost everything,” said Evans.
Pierce once worked as a crabber and roofer. After years of physical labor, he said his knees gave out and, in the past, he overcame an addiction to pain medication due to his medical issues.
He’d stabilized and was living on a friend’s property when tragedy struck.
“His dogs were his life. Sunday, the mother of the puppies thankfully wasn’t in the fire and that’s probably the only thing that’s holding him together right now,” said Dalton Pierce, Brett’s son.
“She doesn’t know what she’s done for me, I love her with all my heart,” Brett said about his dog Sunday.
Dalton, who lives in Ellensburg, started an online fundraiser to share with friends and relatives and interested members of the community, to help Brett get back on his feet.
Rogers says the church also helped to reach out to members of the community and secured a donated, used RV for Dalton. Though it needs a new roof and other repairs to make it accessible for a person with Brett’s medical issues. It is pictured below:
Dalton is planning to help his dad get the things he needs to outfit a new home, including toiletries and clothing. He also hopes to use some of the money raised in the online fundraiser for the RV repairs and to outfit the RV with better steps or a ramp so that Pierce can get into the home.
Roger says the church community has found people willing to donate labor to help repair the RV, but materials are needed.
Brett told us he personally wanted to thank all the nurses at Swedish for their care and support. He was also grateful to the community for rallying around him.
“The outreach has been overwhelming. They are so kind, and I can’t thank them enough,” said Brett.
Although Brett told us he heard speculation that an old, faulty refrigerator might have contributed to the fire, Marysville Fire and Rescue has reported that the cause of the fire is still under investigation.
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