Charlotte family loses everything, fortunate to be alive after arson fire

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (WBTV) - A family says they are fortunate to be alive after a fire ravaged their home over the weekend. Almost everything they owned was destroyed by flames.

But what makes this unnerving is how and why the fire started. Charlotte police call it a case of arson.

A family’s pictures and memories are gone and the reason why all of this happened is beyond anybody’s comprehension.

“Everything I worked hard for - for me and my kids, is just gone,” said Jantavia Werts who owned the home. Her family was at church last Sunday when she got the phone call saying something terrible was happening.

“And you just keep playing it over and over how you left the house and how you came back to it,” Werts described.

By the time she got back home, everything was gone. Clothes, new furniture, and even her daughter’s pageant dresses were reduced to ash.

“All the beautiful dresses I wish I could show them to you. They’re gone,” Werts exclaimed.

What she could show WBTV’s Ron Lee were pictures from inside the house that day after the fire was extinguished. Now, her house is far too dangerous to enter.

“Just hurts to know that everything is gone,” she said.

As the fire department dug deeper into what happened, they reached an unsettling conclusion – this fire was intentionally set.

“They said there were three hotspots upstairs that I guess the fire initially started,” Werts told us.

The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department confirms this appears to be a case of arson, but the who and why at the center of this investigation are still unknown.

Werts’s daughter Serenity turns six years old on Sunday. This year, her birthday will be very different than in years past.

Wert’s mother Hernettia Acker says while some things can be replaced, lives irreplaceable are safe and unharmed.

“All of them are still here to be with us every day. We are very thankful for that.”

The Charlotte Fire Department says intentionally set fires have gone up dramatically over the past year. Fire captain Jackie Gilmore says fires of this type have risen 26% in just a few months.

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