Jesse Faust finally found a place he could call home: a fourth-floor apartment in Manchester with his partner and two other roommates.
Before signing the lease on Dec. 9, Faust lived with his parents in Exeter for some time and then was homeless since May.
“I felt like I was finally putting myself back on track after kind of having unstable grounds,” the 23-year-old said.
Faust is once again on unstable ground after a fire ripped through the nine-unit apartment building on Amherst Street on New Year’s Day. It killed two people — a 70-year-old man and a 5-year-old girl — and displaced as many as 50 people.
Faust said he lost over 25 pet reptiles and one of his roommate’s cats died in the blaze.
Residential fires have long-lasting impacts not only on those who lose their homes but also on the firefighters who battle the flames. It can especially take a toll when lives are lost, which has become more common as the number of fire and emergency calls statewide are on the rise.
Captain Chris Dolloff has been with the Concord Fire Department for 21 years. Last month, he responded to the two-story Boscawen fire that left 66-year-old Ronald Fowler, Jr. dead and multiple others displaced. Dolloff was one of the first responders to extract Fowler from the home.
He said he found it helpful over the years to lean on his family and friends outside of the fire service to cope with the losses he has seen on the job.
“As [my children] get older, they understand more about what it is that I do and what we do in the fire service and the toll that could take on us,” Dolloff said.
In addition to his support system outside of the fire station, he said his colleagues are also an important part of healing and improving their work.
“I think most of us find the greatest support within each other, in breaking bread and talking around the firehouse … and just trying to make sure that we’ve done everything that we can to make sure that we’re providing the best and most aggressive and accurate services that we can,” Dolloff said.
James Duckworth, a Concord firefighter of 23 years and the president of Local 1045, said emergency calls at the department have trended upward over his career. When he started in 2003, Concord received 6,000 calls over the year. That number is consistently over 10,000 now.
Duckworth said mental health support has “come quite a long way” during his time in the fire service. The Concord Fire Peer Support Team is available to firefighters who need to talk with someone after particularly tough calls.
Duckworth said when he first started out, there was a culture among firefighters to suppress their emotions and fatigue. For Duckworth, and many other firefighters, he turned to drinking to handle the stress, but has been six years sober as of December.
“These days, people are lot more open to discussing things of that nature,” he said. “But obviously, all of it takes up a toll and it’s very difficult because you see that firefighter suicides of retirees are up compared to where they used to be … so we try to do our best to reach out to people.”
Concord Fire, along with 13 other fire crews, responded to the deadly New Year’s Day fire in Manchester. In the aftermath, the American Red Cross connected with several residents to see how they could help.
In 2025, the Red Cross responded to 142 home fires and assisted 634 people. In the first week of 2026, it responded to five fires and helped 64 people.
John Montes, the regional disaster officer for the Red Cross, said their support is designed to help people within the first 24 or 72 hours after their incident. It provides them with financial support for hotels, food and other basic needs but also connects them with nonprofits, city and town services and other resources to stabilize their lives again.
“We connect with all of them and try and get the clients the maximum amount of help they can get based on their needs,” Montes said.
Jesse Faust said he is grateful for the Red Cross’s assistance after the Manchester fire.
“We had lost a lot of medicine in the fire, and they have been super diligent with trying to help us get back our medication and just get us on the right track of how to take care of ourselves,” he said.
Faust got support from a local church on the day of the fire, where volunteers helped many victims take shelter and provided towels to dry off from the snow. He also launched a GoFundMe that received nearly $4,000 in donations.
In the days after the fire, Faust has been in touch with insurance companies, attorneys and the landlord to recover everything he can. He said he’s been in his car most days but is staying with the mother of one of his roommates for the time being.
Faust said he has “never seen so much humanity in my entire life” and has been touched by the donations of clothes and food he received.
“I just really think kindness and compassion and understanding really goes a long way, because it could happen to you, even if it hasn’t,” he said.