Routiers’ Home Lost, Spirit Strong
On Saturday, Aug. 16, six-time NFR qualifier, Buffalo, South Dakota cowgirl, Jessica Routier, was in Ft. Pierre with her daughters, Payton, Rayna, Rose, and Charlie, for the South Dakota 4-H Rodeo Finals when she received a call that their home near Buffalo, South Dakota had caught fire.
She soon learned that their house was destroyed in the flames. Despite the devastation, the family remains strong and hopeful, drawing strength from each other and the outpouring of support around them.
Jessica recalls, “It was a pretty helpless feeling because we were three and a half hours away from home.” Jessica’s husband, Riley, began calling his brother and all the neighbors he could think of. It wasn’t long before countless friends and neighbors showed up to help in whatever way they could. Riley and his father, Terry, soon took off for home, while Jessica and her mother-in-law, Laurie, stayed with the girls. Unfortunately, by the time Terry and Riley made it back to Buffalo, there was nothing that could be done.
One neighbor told Jessica that “it felt like hours trying to figure out what to do and wait for everyone else to be there.” Friends, neighbors, and the local volunteer firefighters tried to salvage whatever they could from the house and stayed well into the night to put the fire out as it continued to reignite. Jessica said, “Anything they could get out of the house, they did,” and when they got home, “there were actually three trailer loads of our belongings” that had been pulled from the wreckage. Jessica can’t say exactly how many people were there to help, but she knows there were many and is grateful to them all. Jessica said, “I can’t imagine what they went through to get all these things out.” Someone even took down Payton’s bedroom door to save the autograph collection she had hung on it.
The immediacy with which people came together to help stunned the Routiers. Jessica said, “I don’t even think the fire was put out, and Heidi Schmidt [president of the WPRA] texted me and said, ‘Your NFR back numbers are already being remade.'” After the fire, Jessica posted some pictures on Facebook “just to kind of show people what was going on,” and people were quick to notice belongings that had been destroyed that they wanted to help replace. A craftsman that had made one of Jessica’s NFR keepsakes had seen how badly damaged it was and offered to remake it for her. Jessica said, “That stuff is important to me, and I’m so grateful. I feel so lucky to have had them once, and then people are going out of their way to make sure that I get them back, so it’s just unbelievable.”
One silver lining is that Routiers have an apartment connected to their barn, equipped with a kitchen and a bathroom, where their son, Braden, had lived for a while. As the fire burned, some neighbors began getting the apartment cleaned and stocked for when the Routiers returned home. Jessica said, “We’re just so grateful that we still have a place to live right here on our place.”
Jessica has seen friends go through loss, illness, and situations “where you don’t see a solution or how it can get better.” But for them, Jessica makes it sound simple: “You just build a house.” Jessica added, “We still have all our family, and there’s a lot to be thankful for.”
Despite this tragedy, the family remains positive and hopeful for what is to come. Jessica said, “It’s hard to look at the negatives of a situation when so many people have done so many things to help make it a better situation for us.” Jessica gives credit to their community, family, and rodeo family for giving them strength, saying, “It seems like no matter if you’re celebrating or trying to overcome something bad that’s happened, everyone just bands together.”
Routiers have been busy sorting through what was pulled from the house, inventorying lost items for insurance, and working on their apartment until they can eventually rebuild. For anyone wanting to support their family, cards and checks can be mailed to: Jessica & Riley Routier, c/o Pioneer Bank & Trust, PO Box 307, Buffalo, SD 57720, or a GoFundMe has been set up at https://gofund.me/367f58d3.
