Family in need after early morning fire

A Cassopolis family is asking for all the help they can get after a fire destroyed their home early Thursday morning.

It was a smoke-filled scene along the 57,000 block of Penn Road in Cassopolis around 7 o’clock in the morning.

Firefighters fought heavy rains and wind while trying to contain the flames.

Thursday afternoon, what was left was a sobering scene.

The home – belonging to Rick Ottman and his wife Deborah – was so damaged, you could see right through it.

Rick’s adult daughter stopped by the house Thursday afternoon to see it all.

She said, off camera, that firefighters told her family they think lightening was to blame for the fire.

She said her family had made many memories in the home, and though it’s now destroyed, they hope not to leave.

They’ve set up a GoFundMe page to raise money to not only clean up, but potentially rebuild; to keep their roots in rural Cassopolis.

On the GoFundMe page, Rick’s daughter writes that her father “would give the shirt off his back to help someone so I just want to do the same for him.”

Nobody was injured in the fire, but the damage hurt enough.