After returning home from picking up her husband after work, Cristina Perales smelled smoke as she walked into her family’s home in the Bronx.

“I noticed a charcoal smell, like as if someone just put out their barbecue grill, so I didn’t think anything of it since the rain had just started about an hour ago,” said Cristina. “Then we both smelled it, and it smelled very strong at this point.”

The couple searched their house, checking to make sure it wasn’t from an outlet where the air conditioner was plugged in, before deciding that maybe the smell was coming from a grill or someone using power tools next door. Cristina started rinsing rice to cook dinner.

In a matter of minutes, the smell became very strong. Cristina heard someone yelling from outside that their roof was on fire.

“Two minutes later, someone is yelling outside the window,” said Cristina. “He goes, ‘yo, your roof is on fire!’”

She alerted her Teddy, her husband of two years, and turned off the stove before grabbing her purse and keys and calling 911.

When Cristina exited her front door only eight minutes after she first entered, she could see smoke and fire on the roof at the back of the house. Rain poured down as she watched flames grow larger in the home they had bought months earlier for them and their two children.

Earlier that day, Cristina had been celebrating the last day of summer classes in her graduate program. Through her job with the New York City public school system, she was going to graduate school while also working as a special education teacher — and exams were happening over the next few days.

Knowing how important it was to his wife to be able to finish this program, Teddy ran back inside their burning home to get her laptop as she was on the phone with 911.

The fire department arrived, and shortly after the American Red Cross did too. The Red Cross asked Cristina and Teddy how they were feeling, who lived in the house and if there were any pets. Thankfully Cristina and Teddy’s 3-year-old daughter and 11-year-old son were on vacation at the time and not at home.

Red Cross volunteers on the scene knew that they would need shelter and help replacing lost items, but equally important was the immediate need to help her and her husband maneuver through the emotional toll caused by the fire.

“I'm so grateful they were able to aid me right away and were able to comfort me as well. I was in shock and they did not leave my side,” said Cristina. “The Red Cross was just amazing, asking the right questions at the right time to keep us calm, checking on me and my husband, and getting information so they could help me right away.”

The Red Cross arranged for the couple to stay in a hotel the night of the fire and scheduled an appointment the next morning to sit down with a Red Cross caseworker.

“Even though I wasn't able to understand what was happening right then and there, the Red Cross made sure to take care of everything. I'm forever grateful,” said Cristina.

The fire department eventually allowed Cristina and Teddy to enter their apartment, but little was salvageable because of the fire and water damage. Teddy lost a Dragon Ball Z collection that he had been accumulating for a decade, along with all of their other possessions. The family had just moved in five months earlier, buying new furniture and a new television — all of which was now destroyed.

The Red Cross helped Cristina replace her medication, glasses and dental equipment. Later on, they connected Cristina with a disaster mental health volunteer who helped give her some tools and tips to help her process the aftermath of the fire such as trying to focus on enjoying the day and looking for free concerts or other activities to get their minds off the tragedy.

Before the fire, the close-knit family enjoyed taking walks to explore their new neighborhood together, hosting game nights with extended family, cooking new recipes with friends or just watching a movie at home. Afterwards, they found themselves navigating the city’s shelter system and staying with friends while they worked to find a new home.

Telling her children about the fire was difficult, especially for her son who had just started to organize his own room the way he saw fit for a middle school boy. It took her several days for Cristina to be able to have the difficult conversation with him about what happened to their home.

“I wasn’t sure how he would respond, but he was really concerned about his stuffed animal,” said Cristina. “So we took him to the house to see if his stuffed animal survived and everything. His stuffed animal was under his pillow and it had survived.”

Later, Cristina asked her son how he was feeling after everything that had happened.

“He said, ‘I'm okay knowing that everyone is okay.’ As long as he knew that his family was okay, that's all that matters to him,” added a proud Cristina.