Brothers’ priority during fire that gutted home was ‘saving Geovanny’

When a fire swept through their home in the predawn hours of a typical Tuesday, the Avila family lost everything. Everything but each other.

Shelly Avila was home with her three sons at 4 a.m. on April 30. Her husband, Edgar, who works nights, was not due home for another couple of hours. The boys, Diego, 17, Draven, 16, and Geovanny, 14, were sleeping.

Then chaos erupted.

The fire began near Draven’s bedroom. The uninsured double-wide home in the Carefree Manufactured Home Community near Nellis Boulevard and Cheyenne Avenue burned quickly. The smoke detectors didn’t go off, but the acrid smell woke the family.

“I was scared,” said Diego, as he recalled waking to crisis. His primary concern: “Is my family OK?”

Diego ran through a burning hallway, picked up a sleeping Geovanny and handed his autistic brother to Draven, who had used his arm to break out a window from the outside.

“I wasn’t really thinking,” Draven said of the night his family lost all their material possessions. “I just remember running outside.”

Protecting their youngest brother was a driving instinct for the older two, and for Diego, it was an eye-opener.

“It made me realize that if we work together, fast and efficient, we can get anything done,” Diego said, “like saving Geovanny.”

Since the fire gutted their home, the Avilas have relied on each other and an outpouring of support from the community. People have been calling the family with offers of clothing, shoes, kitchen items and furniture, said a grateful Shelly. But it’s the destruction of irreplaceable things that hurts most.

“My oldest kid said ‘Mom, my baby book burned’,” Shelly said. “Things like that, you can’t get back.”

The cause of the fire, which caused about $30,000 in damage, hasn’t been determined yet. Three dogs survived the blaze, but the Avilas lost four parakeets, a parrot, a snake and fish that couldn’t be rescued.

While the Avilas search for a new home, they are staying with a neighbor, sleeping on inflatable mattresses on the kitchen and living room floors. Though temporarily displaced, the boys are making the best of things, according to their mother.

“I think they’re handling it better than me. …They know they can rely on me and their father,” Shelly said. “They’re just happy when they’re all together.”

The road back to normal is going to be a long one for the displaced family. Since they’re still at the manufactured home community, they regularly see the blackened remains of their old home.

“Fix it,” said Geovanny as he stared through the fence around the blackened remains of his home on Sunday.

“We’ll fix it, honey,” Shelly reassured him.

“It gives me bad memories when I see it,” Diego said of the charred remains of his home. “I officially hate fires now.”

The morning of the fire, Edgar came home from work not knowing what had happened.

“I was just expecting to go home and go to bed,” Edgar said.

Instead, he arrived from work to find firefighters, cops and media on the lot.

“[Edgar] walked right up on it,” Shelly said. “He just stared at it. He looked to both sides thinking he got the wrong house. I could see him tear up. He didn’t even know.“

For Shelly, “It’s like a bad dream and I wish it was just a dream.”

Cleaning up the lot is one of the responsibilities the Avilas face as they try to get back on their feet.

“The park has been very good to me,” Shelly said. “I’m responsible for the lot payment, but they’re going to work with me.”

Financial assistance has been trickling in. They received a little over $900 from the Southern Nevada Chapter of the American Red Cross. Diego’s girlfriend, Melissa Torres, raised over $700 in donations at her high school for the family. An elementary school-aged neighbor brought them about $25 he had raised in a bake sale.

“I’ve never been embraced by such warm, giving, sensitive people,” Shelly said.

This has also been a big lesson for the family in home safety. Their brush with the destructive power of fire has them all vowing to be more careful in the future.

“This is what happens when you don’t keep batteries in the smoke detectors,” Shelly said. “Everyone needs smoke detectors in every room. Also fire extinguishers. I am not playing anymore. I am going to be ready.”

Diego and Geovanny both started school again this week, and Draven, who was taking online classes at home, is trying to make up missed work since he lost all of his class materials in the fire.

“All that matters is that we got the kids out,” said Shelly, adding that everything else can be fixed.

Diego and Draven will be receiving awards from the Clark County Fire Department for their heroic actions on Saturday. The ceremony begins at 10 a.m. at Fire Station 23, 4250 E. Alexander Road.

Contact Rochel Leah Goldblatt at rgoldblatt@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0264.