Woman loses all of her chickens in a wildfire except one

BRIMSON, Minn. (WCCO) - Wildfires have ravaged a northern Minnesota community and more than 180 buildings and homes have been destroyed.

One woman lost all of her chickens except for one, named Reba.

“Part of her face is burnt along with her feet and other parts of her body, but she’s doing OK otherwise,” Mikala Schliep said.

Reba somehow made it out of the wildfires. She is the only one of Schliep’s chickens to survive.

Firefighters found the chicken days after flames broke out.

“Actually, they were the same people who helped our house. It got up to the very back corners on both sides. It was right there. If it wasn’t for them, we wouldn’t have anything,” Schliep said.

She works part-time at Hugo’s and on Sunday, one of the bar’s regulars had a big surprise for her.

“He walked me up to his truck and there was a chicken coop in the back, and I was super overwhelmed. I was crying like a baby. Then he opened the back door of his truck and there was 15 little babies in there,” she said.

Schliep said it was a sweet gesture and made her day “a little brighter.”

She is back home after being evacuated for almost a week, but she said the nights have been sleepless.

“With the wind, we’ve been getting really anxious because we don’t know what’s going to start back up,” she said.

Schliep said she believes that everything will be OK because of the and love that exists in her community.

“It’s been really healing to be up at Hugo’s and being with the community because I feel like that’s where I need to be right now,” she said.

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