A family of eight in Opelousas lost everything, including the family car, after a house fire on the corner of West Leonard and Pike Streets Sunday morning.

Firefighters battled the blaze for at least two hours before getting it under control. Opelousas Assistant Fire Chief, Carl White, believes the fire started in the AC and heating unit.

 Yagetta Dickerson says she had been renting the house for over a year before her family lost everything in the fire. She says the memory of the fire is something she won’t soon forget. “I was woken up to smoke alarms screaming and immediately jumped out of the bed to start looking for my kids.”

     Dickerson and her fiancé, Terrance Andrus, are parents to six children. She says her instinct was to save their kids, but later remembered they were at their grandmother’s house. “I ran out that room screaming my location just in case they heard me and heard two loud booms and the kitchen was on fire.”

The American Red Cross is providing temporary housing at a hotel.

     Dickerson describes it as one of the scariest moments of her life and says she is thankful a neighbor came in and carried her out. Andrus, her fiancé, also made it out of the burning home safely.

“I’m just thankful everybody is still living. I mean a house can be replaced, but a body can’t,” says Andrus.

     Andrus says their days at the hotel are numbered which will leave them to rely on relatives and friends to take them in. Dickerson says they are now taking it one day at a time.