Montana homeowners offer summer houses to wildfire victims

MISSOULA, Mont. – Homeowners in a northwestern Montana town are offering their summer residences to displaced victims of California wildfires.

The Missoulian reports the offer from Seeley Lake was first posted on social media on Wednesday, and then it was extended through a news release sent to a newspaper in Santa Rosa, California.

Emily Rindal was the first to open her home, and she says the community knows how stressful it can be to experience wildfires.

The area was plagued with wildfires that forced evacuations in late August. Many homeowners are seasonal.

Rindal says they had a lot of people help them out, so they “wanted to pay it forward.”

Since igniting Sunday in spots across California’s wine country, the blazes have killed 31 people and destroyed at least 3,500 homes and businesses.

AP-WF-10-13-17 1504GMT