A tragic blaze cost a Long Valley family their home in late July, but now things are looking up for them.

It was a Tuesday night in late July when the Mergen family lost their home to a fire. According to the Long Valley Patch, the blaze was extinguished in about 45 minutes, but the fire left the house uninhabitable.

A friend of the Mergens started a GoFundMe page with the goal of raising $5,000 to help the family out. Donations flooded in and more than $30,000 was donated to help the Mergens get back on their feet.

In an interview, Duncan Mergen, a junior at WMC said: “We were just so humbled and so grateful for the town, how generous they were. It was crazy.”

After staying with close friends for a while, the Mergens are working on plans to rebuild their home.

Duncan told us that “it should take eight months once we have a blueprint…hopefully by the end of September we should have a plan, and by December there should be a framework for the house.”