TAUNTON — Kristie Podolske was sleeping when a relative in the apartment above her banged on the door shouting, “The house is on fire! Everybody get out!”

Podolske only had time to wake her family and run out of the house with her boyfriend, Shaun Charest, and their two young sons and the family dog.

She never imagined the fire reported at around 11 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 6, would take the life of a close family friend who lived on the third floor and destroy everything they owned in the blink of an eye.

“I was hoping I was in a dreamland and I’d wake up and find out it didn’t really happen, but it’s real,” Podolske said through tears Wednesday afternoon.

Podolske, 31, returned to the house Wednesday morning hoping it wasn’t as bad as she feared. But it was worse, boarded up everything blackened and charred inside.

Inside that house were family photo albums and her laptop with the only copies of baby pictures of the boys, Kyle, 10, and Shaun Jr., 11. The new bikes they got for Christmas were in the basement. Every piece of clothing they own, even their shoes — all gone.

And they have no idea where they will be living, Podolske said. For now they are staying in a hotel and taking it one day, one hour, at a time, she said.

When Podolske’s best friend Jessica Goncalves, who recently moved to Florida, heard about the fire she immediately set up a GoFundMe page to help her friend’s family. To donate go to https://www.gofundme.com/qakys-help-a-family-rebuild-after-fire.

“They lost everything, but she’s a fighter,” Goncalves said.

Goncalves wasn’t just talking about the fire. Podolske, 31, was diagnosed with leukemia when she was 27 and underwent a bone marrow transplant that brought her to the brink of death and back.

And now she is in remission and feeling healthy and extremely grateful. But the fire is a difficult blow after such a long road coming back, she said.

“It’s hit after hit for this family,” Podolske said Wednesday afternoon.

She said she is in shock at the loss, especially of her close family friend, Robert Botellio, who lived on the third floor and died in the fire.

“Inside I feel like I’m crying hysterically but no tears are coming from my eyes,” said Podolske, who works at the Dunkin' Donuts on Route 44 in Raynham Marketplace.

Charest works for a company that does after-market automobile work, installing added features.

They don’t have any apartment dwellers insurance and she thinks back now with regret at an offer she recently got in the mail to purchase some.

“You never think it will happen to you,” Podolske said.

Podolske said the one saving grace in this devastating tragedy has been the overwhelming outpouring of support from the community. It makes her feel like her family is not alone, she said.

When she stopped by Kyle’s school this morning, Hopewell Elementary School, the whole school had already gotten together to purchase clothes for the entire family.

When she went into the Mash Thrift and Unique Gift Shop on Broadway, the owner told her to take anything she wanted free of charge.

But she still has waves of sadness when the full weight of what happened hits her.

She thinks of the video games her sons had taken so much pride in purchasing with their own money and her heart breaks for them.

“They asked me this morning if they could see the house. I said, ‘You don’t want to see it’,” Podolske said.

She wants to protect them from the loss but she knows she can’t, so she tries to help them look at it in a different way.

“I’m trying to explain to my children all these things can be replaced,” she said.

As for Botellio, she hasn't told them that he died in the fire yet. Some things can't be replaced.

"I still can't believe this is real," she said.

To donate on the GoFundMe page for the Podolske-Charest family, visit https://www.gofundme.com/qakys-help-a-family-rebuild-after-fire.