The families staying at the Long Beach Rescue Mission didn’t expect their Christmas weekend to start this way.
A Christmas tree in the Rescue Mission’s 50-bed Lydia House, which serves women who are unhoused, caught fire on Friday, Dec. 22 at around 11 p.m., filling the first floor completely with smoke and displacing dozens of residents, who took temporary shelter at the nearby Samaritan House.
The fire was quickly extinguished, and no one was injured. Lydia House residents moved back in on Saturday, but the first floor is now unusable, said Jeff Levine, executive director of the Rescue Mission.
The initial shock was scary for the residents, said Levine. Those staying at the facility were experiencing a difficult, high-stress situation on top of their own hardship.
But Levine said they felt safe when he arrived at the scene, and they took comfort in support from staff, who do what they can to normalize the residents’ experiences and make the facility a place of “hope and healing.”
“This is my heart. I love this place, I love the residents we serve,” said Levine. “I want them to feel protected. I want them to feel secure.”
Now, the families are doing well, and the Rescue Mission has begun remediation, making adjustments to meal services and having a chaplain provide pastoral care, said Levine.
They’re currently using air scrubbers to get rid of the smell of smoke and will tend to the damage to the floor and window treatments that were affected by the heat. They don’t know when the first floor remodeling will be done, but they hope to get it ready again within three to six months, said Levine.
The exact cause of the fire is currently unknown, but an arson investigation is underway, said Fire Department spokesperson Jake Heflin.
Many Christmas tree fires are started by lamps or bulbs, and the percentage of home fires caused by candles goes from about 33% year-round to 46% in December, Heflin added.
Folks at the Lydia House, though, are staying resilient and celebrating the small wins.
It was “by God’s grace” that damage wasn’t worse and no one was hurt, said Levine, as the buildings at the Rescue Mission were built in the late 1980s and framed out of wood.
A playroom just across the hall from the fire, recently renovated with new toys and dedicated to dignifying the children at the facility, was also untouched by fire or water damage.
“For us, that’s a Christmas miracle,” said Levine.