A family of seven escaped a wildfire in Washington State earlier this month, but their new home was destroyed before they even had a chance to settle into it.

“We lost everything,” mother Rebel Hart told CBS affiliate KREM in a report published on Sunday, Aug. 16. “We’re still processing where to begin. We’re still remembering things we lost every day.”

On Aug. 1, Hart, her husband Ivan Yeremkin and their five kids were moving their belongings into their new house in the Nine Mile Falls area. Seven hours later, they were forced to evacuate as the Old Trails Fire approached.

Hart told KREM that Yeremkin and his brother brought in two U-Haul trucks that morning containing the family’s belongings and unloaded them in their garage. She later said Yeremkin left around 1:20 p.m. to return to return one of the trucks in Spokane Valley.

About 30 minutes later, police were coming down the road with sirens blaring, Hart said.

“When I looked out the window to see what was going on, I could see fire on the trees, so we grabbed the kids and our two dogs,” she told KREM. “Didn’t have time to think to grab anything else. And we left.”

Hart said she and her children spent about three hours sitting in evacuation traffic and eventually made it out of Nine Mile Falls. She also contacted Yeremkin, who was returning the U-Haul at the time, to say the family was being evacuated.

Upon returning to their community, the family saw their new home in shambles. Having just moved in before the blaze, the family did not yet have renter’s insurance.

“The experience has been overwhelming, and we are still coming to terms with everything that has happened,” Hart wrote in the description of a GoFundMe launched to help her family recover. “We lost all of our irreplaceable family items, and we had just moved into the home. Losing it so suddenly has left us feeling vulnerable and uncertain about the future.”

Hart said in the fundraiser that she is an ER nurse at a hospital, and is “used to helping others in times of crisis.” She added, “this time my family and I are the ones in need. We are now facing the challenge of finding temporary housing and replacing the essentials we lost in the fire.”

Among the sentimental items lost to the fire were Hart’s nursing diploma, family photographs, children’s artwork and a stuffed animal given to her when she was a baby from her grandmother. Still, Hart acknowledged that her family’s safety was the most important thing.