Silence. Someone screams. Sounds of people yelling and people running. Someone is shouting to call 9-1-1 as the flames start to grow higher and higher.

“It was really hot outside,” sophomore Sierra Stevenson said. “We were kind of in the middle of the drought.”

Fifteen year old Sierra Stevenson never knew that on July 1 a series of unfortunate events would occur to her family. The sophomore had just come home from camp when she heard the scream. A brush fire erupted by their house where her father had been burning brush earlier that day.

“I heard my mom’s scream,” Stevenson said. “It was the worst scream ever, like bloody murder scream.”

Stevenson’s family immediately took action. With only her two older siblings and her mother home, the family had to act quick before the fire spread to their house.

“My brother was totally the hero of the day,” Stevenson said. “He was on top of the thing [brush pile]. He was trying to spray it from one angle and I was trying at another. Hailey [Stevenson’s older sister] and I were running back and forth, back and forth trying to bring fire extinguishers and none of them worked but one. So we’d lug them over there, wouldn’t work, run back. Lug them over there, wouldn’t work, run back.”

All barefoot but their mother, who was trying to get in touch with the fire department, the three siblings tried to contain the fire.

“We were worried it was going to touch the house,” Stevenson said. “She [Hailey] was running and she ran across coals. That was where my dad was initially doing the fires. I was running right after her, but then I heard her yell. It didn’t look hot at all, that spot, because it was just like ash, but there was coals underneath and that’s how it burned. She ran across and then started yelling, ‘Kendrick, I’m hurt! I’m hurt!'”

With Stevenson’s eldest sibling hurt, and the fire department still not present to help, the situation became even more stressful.

“I could hear my sister crying, and my mom was screaming,” Stevenson said. “It was all very pressuring.”

Finally, the fire department showed up, the fire was contained, and Stevenson’s sister was eventually taken to a doctor for the second and third degree burns on her feet.

“It has been such a blessing that everything turned out fine,” Stevenson said. “I don’t know if that’s how I’d feel now because I was going off two hours of sleep. I was very much in shock. We all were extremely in shock that it had happened.”

Stevenson’s sister was in recovery for over a month. The close-knit family sees the scars on her feet as a reminder for that dreadful day, and they are thankful that they have each other.

“I really felt the family connection, with the big family that we are,” Stevenson said. “I’m super happy that my family is that close and that we all were able to be there and help each other out.”

Guest Columnist: Sarah Sanchez

Sanchez chose to write about the Stevenson family using lyrics from an assignment given in her Journalism 1 class.

“There was a line about family, being as a family, and I immediately thought of Sierra because she has such..I know her brother, and she has such a  big family and she’s like the sweetest person ever,” Sanchez said.

This was Sanchez’s first interview, and plans to major in Journalism and Mass Communications at Texas State or the University of Texas.