Carol Ledford didn't mind that most of her home was in charred ruins, with clothes, toys and boxes dragged into the driveway, smeared with ashes and soot.
"Material things don't matter," she said. "The kids are safe."
Ledford's home on Fieldcrest Drive was gutted Monday evening in a fire started by her two 9-year-old grandchildren playing with matches in the bathroom, she said.
Ledford managed to get all five grandchildren out of the house safely.
"I had just moved one of the oldest girls into a room of her own and put the old mattresses in the bathroom," Ledford said. "The boys went in there to play. When I got there, I saw flames coming from the mattress. It was totally in flames and the window had popped out. I tried to swat at it with a blanket, but it spread real fast."
Firefighters from three departments responded to the blaze. At times, the flames reached 25 feet in the air, said Tony Holsclaw, Mountain View fire chief. It took about three hours to extinguish the blaze, he said.
On Tuesday morning, mattresses, along with dozens of other possessions, were piled high in Ledford's driveway. All that was left of the mattresses were the coils that comprised the springs, which were blackened by smoke. A few shreds of white fabric clung to them.
Ledford and her daughter, Amy Hess, came back to their home to get the children's Bibles. Hess's three children, who are 7, 9 and 10, and their cousins, who are 9 and 10, all received children's Bibles at their church, Icard Church of God, on Sunday. Ledford said the children really wanted their new, "God's Word for Girls" and "God's Word for Boys" Bibles back. She hoped to give them to the grandchildren when they came home from school.
Ledford said although her family's been staying in a hotel, with help from the Red Cross, she hoped to rebuild her home, which is insured.
"I've been in the house for 28 years," she said. "I'll probably stay here."
Hess said everyone in the neighborhood has been extremely generous to the family.
"The whole neighborhood has come together to give us clothes and we're very thankful," she said.
Meanwhile, a second fire Monday destroyed a home in Denver. The fire was reported at about 9:40 p.m. in a home on Mundy Lane, off Lineberger Road.
Sherrills Ford Fire Chief Keith Bost said the fire was under control by 10 p.m., but not before destroying 75 percent of the mobile home.
When firefighters arrived at the fire, Bost said the homeowner, David Lee Edwards, and his fiancee were already outside. They tried to put the fire out themselves, Bost said. Edwards also had removed some personal property from the home.
The fire started when Edwards and his fiancee fell asleep watching TV and left a candle burning, said Jason Boggs, an investigator with the Catawba County Fire Marshal's Office.
"When the woman woke up, she saw fire coming from behind the TV," he said. "The candle ignited curtains behind the TV stand."
Although no one was injured in either fire, Bost recommends that residents who smell smoke or see flames get out immediately and call 911, rather than trying to fight the fire themselves.
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