Home Based Business

Blackened walls, tattered drywall and waterlogged floors are what’s left in the aftermath of a Racine house fire.The fire happened before noon Wednesday near Hayes Avenue and 15th Street.Before it happened, 11-year-old Trinity Kornas and seven of her siblings were home alone because their mother had to take their eighth sibling to an appointment.The Kornas children are between the ages of 14-years-old and 6 months old; they’re all homeschooled. Trinity went to check on her younger brother playing upstairs when she noticed something was wrong.”I could smell the smoke and what scared me was I could see the smoke, which was even scarier,” Trinity said, as she recalled the smoke was coming from underneath an upstairs bedroom door.”My plan was just to get everybody outside,” Trinity said. “And I was like, ‘Yeah, get outside.’ ‘Why?’ ‘There’s a fire in the house!'”Trinity rushed all her siblings and their dogs out to safety before calling for help. Their parents and the Racine Fire Department arrived within minutes. “Like we’re so proud of you. You’re so brave. She’s only 11, but she was able to kind of hold her composure and make sure that everybody was, you know, safe and calm until I could get there,” her mother, Kristina Kornas, said.Firefighters got the fire under control within seven minutes. Lt. Dave Nagl said the fire damage was limited to the upstairs bedroom where the blaze originated from because the door was closed. “There’s definitely zero fire damage in any other room and almost no other smoke damage there. There’s so little smoke damage in the second floor and virtually none on the first floor. So just having that door closed saved the whole rest of the house,” Nagl said.Trinity said she knew how to get her siblings out because of her family’s fire safety plan they had practiced.”Teach your kids fire safety and hold your babies tight because mine could not be here right now,” said Kristina Kornas. “They’re my whole world so to think that something could have happened is just, it’s awful.”While she’s sad about their house, Trinity is thankful their family is still together.”At least they’re all safe. That’s all that matters,” she said. Racine fire said the cause of the fire is still under investigation.The Kornas’ are living in a hotel because of the damage to their home; they have a GoFundMe started to help them get back on their feet.