ARLINGTON — Two weeks before the start of her senior year at Arlington High School, Payton Knudson wasn’t expecting that her family would have to find a new home and replace their belongings.
But a house fire early in the morning on Aug. 22 rendered the Knudsons’ home unlivable and claimed a great deal of their possessions, sending Payton to live with her aunt on Camano Island as she tried to get ready to go back to school.
“My sister literally saved my life,” Knudson said. “She was still up late when the fire happened, and pulled me out of bed.”
The cause of the fire remains under investigation, although Payton heard it could be due to an electrical fault. In any event, the house isn’t repairable, and while the family made it out safely, they’re still picking up the pieces.
“We were able to recover some of the photo albums, and we’ve got plenty of makeup and clothes,” Knudson said. “But we still need to replace the stuff that folks don’t think of, like shelves for storage and hangars and laundry baskets and dishes and silverware, that we’ll need once we can move into a new place of our own.”
While Knudson’s aunt has set up a GoFundMe page to raise money for the family’s other expenses, at www.gofundme.com/2ant25sk, about a dozen of her friends from school have mobilized to take up a collection of their own for their classmate, distributing 50 collection cans throughout Arlington, Smokey Point and parts of Marysville.
“We’re her backup posse,” fellow AHS senior Edward Radion said. “Once her close friends found out what had happened, we all put in the work, so she can start off the school year a little easier. We don’t really have a set fundraising goal. Any amount helps.”
AHS teacher Dana Strickland has stepped in to assist the kids, since she knows many of them through the school’s Respect Team, although she hastened to add that the collection drive is neither sponsored by or affiliated with the school.
“We’re just the ones who know her, some of us since middle school,” Radion said.
Radion expects they’ll check the collection cans periodically over the course of the next week and a half, to ensure that Knudson has the money in time to buy school supplies. Her friends also took the time to print Strickland’s cell phone number — 425-876-1050 — as a contact on the bottom of the cans, in case the cans get lost or people are interested in learning more.
“I’m just really thankful to the community for its support,” Knudson said. “I didn’t think this many people even knew my family. I’m so grateful that you all would do this for us. It’s very touching.”
As for the fire itself, the Snohomish County fire marshal is investigating the cause. An engine company stayed at the scene for hours to extinguish any hot spots.
Arlington Fire was dispatched to the scene about 1 a.m. The single-family home in the 300 block of S. Cobb was well-involved, so a second alarm was sounded. The fire took more than an hour to put out because of the age and construction of the home.
Responding to the second alarm were: Marysville, Arlington Rural District 21, Silvana District 19 and the North County Regional Fire Authority.
