Family of eight living in camper after Highway 82 fire destroys home

BRANTLEY COUNTY, Ga. (WTOC) - A family of eight is trying to find their next steps after the Highway 82 fire changed their lives forever.

Jessica Cooke is a mother of six children and is struggling after her home was one of 110 destroyed in Georgia’s most destructive wildfire. Her neighbors’ home next door was left standing.

“They had to have been praying to God harder because their lives were spared,” Cooke said.

Cooke said she is not staying strong.

“I’m not,” she said.

While the entire family is devastated, her 11-year-old autistic twin daughters are struggling the most to adjust. One has kept screenshots of their house from security cameras.

“And she’ll just sit there and scroll. I’m like ‘that’s probably her grieving,’” Cooke said.

Family staying in donated camper

Cooke, her husband David and their six children are staying in a camper that was gifted to them by a friend. The camper is in the friend’s backyard.

“Even when I feel like falling down I’ll go ‘use the bathroom, go in the back room,’ do what I gotta do, ‘go behind the camper’ let it all out, then come back around like it never happened,” Cooke said.

Cooke walked around the remains of her home. The chicken coop was saved, and some of her neighbors’ houses were also kept from the fire’s path.

“I don’t understand it, like it still haunts me to this day, how does this burn and then that’s completely untouched,” Cooke said.

She said her family has plenty of donated clothing and food. While she knows what their next steps are, she does not know when her family can take them yet.

A GoFundMe has been set up for Jessica Cooke and her family.