The Oakland community has rallied behind a family that lost their home in the Oakland Hills fire earlier this month.
Delane Sims had raised eight children and ten grandchildren and would host Thanksgiving dinners in her home for 30 years before the blaze destroyed it.
The home that was one filled with Sims' memories currently sits with boarded windows and locks on the doors.
"It's hard to look at," she said. "I'm truly under guard of a lot of prayer, and it is really needed because there is a different kind of trauma."
The Oakland Hills fire, dubbed the Keller Fire, burned 15 acres, forced evacuations, and damaged two homes. However, Sims' house was the only one destroyed.
Fire crews said the fire started near the freeway across from Sims' home and quickly spread. The cause of the fire is still under investigation.
"It's our family home," Sims' said. "It's where we've taken care of my father that passed away when he was 117, the oldest man in the world."
Sims said her husband was asleep in the home when the fire broke out.
"The windows blew out in our home, and that's what woke him up," she said. When I go back to see the place where he was sleeping was destroyed, I'm just thankful that he got out of there."
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Sims and her husband are currently staying in a hotel until they can find long-term housing, but they still don't know if insurance will cover all the damage from the wildfire.
Despite the loss, Delane said she hopes to use what she learns from the situation to help others in a nonprofit organization she runs.
A GoFundMe set up by the couple's daughter has currently raised over $17,000, which they hope to use to rebuild and heal.
"When people show their love in this way, it goes beyond the money," Sims said. "It goes to those places that help shore us up during these times. To know that people are praying for us, they care about us."
