Neighbors, businesses renovating house for survivors of deadly Coweta fire

COWETA COUNTY, Ga. — Neighbors and businesses are banding together to make sure the survivors of a deadly house fire in Coweta County have a home. They’re renovating an old, abandoned house about a mile from the fire scene on Macedonia Road.

“I’m just a friend helping a friend,” said Juston Fugate, a co-worker of a man who survived the disaster.

Six people, including three children, were killed in the June 17 fire. Five people – a husband and wife and their three children – survived. The woman who survived inherited the nearby house from her family, but it’s rundown and unfit to live in. Fugate enlisted the help of a local contractor and took to social media in search of volunteers to renovate the house, built in 1973.

“Everybody’s pitching in, donating materials, donating time, labor, crews, and so forth,” Fugate told Channel 2′s Bryan Mims. “That way we can completely gut the house and completely rebuild it to make it a forever home.”

For the past two weekends, volunteers have cleared out trash and debris from the property, filling up a large dumpster. Fugate said he has 27 contractors volunteering their services, and the county has granted the group a building permit. He expects the work to take four to six months.

“Honestly, it’s amazing,” Fugate said. “It’s completely amazing, Coweta County coming together like that. It’s a miracle.”

He said of the five survivors, the mother is still in the hospital. The father and the three children are staying with relatives.

“They’re strong, they’ll get through it with what they can,” he said. “They have family helping them out, and they’ve got the whole community behind them and supporting them.”

Investigators have not pinpointed the cause of the fire, but they say it started in the garage.

If you’d like to volunteer for this project, click here .