SUGAR LAND, Texas (KTRK) — A Sugar Land father is on a mission to save lots of lives after shedding his personal youngsters in a home hearth almost two years in the past.

“It’s hard for me to talk about it a lot, you know? Going into details for sure,” Nathan Nguyen stated.

Nguyen’s youngsters — 11-year-old Olivia, 8-year-old Edison, and 5-year-old Colette — had been bundled up inside their mom’s Sugar Land residence when the neighborhood misplaced energy through the winter storm that took maintain of Texas in February 2021.

Fire investigators stated the household was protecting heat with the hearth, however after utilizing it at excessive warmth for an prolonged time frame, the firebox system failed.

SEE ALSO: ‘Why did this happen?’: Father of 3 children killed in house fire shares memories and anguish

The youngsters’s mom woke as much as the house engulfed in smoke and flames nevertheless it was too late. The three youngsters and their grandmother, who had been all asleep on the second story, died.

Now their father, who lived individually, is popping his ache into function.

“I’m doing something to save a life so another tragedy that has happened to them won’t happen with anyone else,” Nguyen stated.

He constructed the OEC Nguyen Foundation, with a mission to unfold hearth security consciousness and instruments.

“Our goal is to save just one life,” he stated.

SEE ALSO: 3 children and grandmother killed in Sugar Land house fire laid to rest

The basis is elevating funds to buy second-story ladders to equip households with their very own instruments to flee a hearth from the within. They are additionally seeking to buy hearth blankets for households to maintain of their bedrooms.

“A blanket that you put over yourself so if there’s a fire and you need to run through it, it protects you from getting singed, getting your clothes on fire, and that way you get through the fire with minimal harm,” he stated.

On Saturday, they’re going to be internet hosting their first massive fundraiser, a enjoyable run, to purchase 500 ladders and 500 hearth blankets.

“A lot of people neglect the thought of ‘this could happen to me,’ or ‘this could happen to us,'” board member Andrew Pham stated. “It’s really important for us to help them be aware of what it would take for them to be able to escape a fire.”

SEE ALSO: Grandma and 3 children die in Sugar Land house fire, officials say

The Sugar Land and Houston hearth departments will likely be current on the household occasion to additionally share life-saving tips, like at all times sleeping with bed room doorways closed to sluggish the unfold of smoke and flames into the room. And if you end up trapped on an upper-level flooring, toss stuff out the window to alert firefighters the place you’re.

“It’s something that you want to be prepared for. It’s one of those disasters you don’t want to have, but if you have the tools for it, you might be able to come out unscathed,” Nguyen stated.

The basis can also be elevating cash to assist fund scholarships and applications on the youngsters’s longtime college St. Laurence Catholic School.

The OEC Nguyen Foundation Fun Run is going down Saturday, Dec. 3, at Sugar Land Memorial Park.

For extra data on the group and fundraiser, visit its website.

For extra on this story, observe Shelley Childers on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

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