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Family Loses Everything in Fire

TEXAS TOWNSHIP, Pa. — A family with four children are homeless after a fire wrecked their home in Wayne County. The family escaped the flames but now have...

TEXAS TOWNSHIP, Pa. -- A family with four children are homeless after a fire wrecked their home in Wayne County.

The family escaped the flames but now have only the clothes on their backs.

When flames broke out at 1080 Shady Lane near Honesdale Tuesday, there wasn't much more that Rachael Hester and James Stalter could do but get out with their four children.

"The door just came off the hinges," Stalter recalled. "I was standing there in the blaze of the fire getting the kids to come out, to come past the fire. I singed my hair off."

The home is now boarded up. The family has only rented for the last eight months and now the Red Cross is helping them with a place to stay.

Just last year, Stalter had to be flown to a hospital after a car he was working on in the garage fell on him.

Stalter has minor burns on his hands and feet and the couple are pleading for help.

"We're still in shock. We don't know where to start. It's overwhelming. Everyone is reaching out and pouring out. It's overwhelming."

Donations are being accepted at the KC Pepper Bar and Grille in Cherry Ridge Township. The children are 11, 8, 8, and 2.

"Everybody's just pulling together, which is such a blessing because without it we'd be in the car," Hester said.

They say they heard a loud explosion but aren't sure what started the fire. Investigators are still looking for the cause and don't believe it was an explosion, but that it started in the corner of the home. The family stopped paying for renters' insurance and now wish they had it.

"We basically have that car, and the kids are healthy, and that's it. We have the clothes on our backs. That's it," Stalter said.

A state police fire marshal is investigating what caused the fire.

The family is looking for a place to stay and also looking for donations since they did not have insurance.

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