LaGRANGE TWP. — A fire overnight at a Whitehead Road home has forced a young LaGrange Township couple from their home and will likely dash their plans to marry in June.

Lisa Scott of Elyria said her daughter, Samantha Scott, 23, awoke last night about 11:30 when she smelled smoke in her home at 15178 Whitehead Road.

“She got up and started checking it out, and she saw flames behind the wood burner,” Lisa Scott said. “She woke up her fiance and called the Fire Department.”

Samantha Scott and her fiance, Jesse Houghton, 26, had been fixing up the home but didn’t have insurance, Lisa Scott said. Now all the money they’d saved up to marry this summer will go to repair the home, Lisa Scott said, and even that won’t be enough.

The fire, which took several fire departments about four hours to put out, completely destroyed the home’s second floor, including the attic, the roof and a bedroom for Houghton’s two children, who weren’t at the home last night. Downstairs, ceilings and walls were damaged, and the kitchen and dining room will need to be redone as well, Lisa Scott said. The only rooms that were spared were the living room and the couple’s bedroom, which was downstairs. Lisa Scott said she wasn’t sure about a monetary amount for the damage. Lisa Scott said firefighters told her a chimney pipe that came apart in the wall caused the fire.

Even though the home is unlivable, Scott and Houghton refuse to leave the property, Lisa Scott said.

“They slept here last night in their Jeep, and they’re hoping they can get a trailer” to stay in on the property while they repair the home, Lisa Scott said.

Right now the family is trying to figure out “how much money we can all pull together,” Lisa Scott said. “We’re going to try to save what we can and get rid of what we can’t.”

Lisa Scott says she plans to go to FirstMerit bank tomorrow and set up a fund for anyone who wants to help Scott and Houghton.

Fire officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

Check back at Chroniclet.com and read Saturday’s Chronicle for more on this story as it becomes available.

View LaGrange Township fire in a larger map

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