Firefighters, organization deliver gifts to family after house fire

Firefighters from across Catawba and Burke counties are helping a family on Christmas Eve who lost everything in a Dec. 14 fire.

Some of those firefighters spent hours trying to bring that fire under control near Hickory.

The firemen were reunited with the family for a special Christmas.

Instead of a sled with eight reindeer, Santa Claus arrived in the back of a pink firetruck filled with gifts for a 4-year-old boy and his 2-year-old sister.

"It's wonderful,” mother Haleigh Solesby said. “It's great because they didn't come out. I was so worried about Christmas and them not getting nothing."

The Pink Heals organization and firefighters from Conover, Mountain View, Sherrills Ford and Valdese helped collect donations for the family.

More than 100 people came forward with food, clothing and gift cards for the family who escaped with only what they were wearing.

"When you see tears of joy coming down their face and you know it is something they didn't expect, they thought Christmas was going to be horrible this year, and then you bring that light and hope to them, it is a feeling no present can bring to you," Allyson Sigmon, with Pink Heals, said.

Fire investigators believe the fire started near a wood stove.

The family was asleep at the time and fortunately, the father woke up when he heard what he thought was his son falling out of his bed. He quickly got everyone out of the home.

The Pink Heals organization, along with Santa and the other firefighters, visited other families in Catawba and Alexander counties Saturday.

For the mother, this is a Christmas she won't ever forget.

"I don't care about myself,” Solesby said. “I just wanted my kids to have clothes because they don't have any. The fire took everything"

Cox Media Group