Mother, daughter who teach in Wichita Public Schools lose two dogs in house fire

A mother and daughter who teach elementary students at Wichita Public Schools lost their two dogs in a fire at their home on Monday, according to online fundraisers and Wellington assistant fire chief Jeff Mraz.

One of the dogs apparently jumped up and turned on the burner, he said.

The fire was reported at 2:44 p.m. at their home in the 100 block of North Poplar, with only the two dogs inside.

“I think it just got hot enough that it eventually just caught the cabinets above the kitchen stove,” Mraz said.

Gayla Gill, a second grade teacher at Riverside Leadership Magnet Elementary School, and her daughter, Rebecca Davison, a fifth grade teacher at Black Traditional Magnet Elementary School, were at work when the fire started.

Their dogs were Rosey and Poppy, according to a fundraiser set up to help them.

Firefighters found heavy flames in the kitchen and some in the dining room and contained the fire to those areas. The dogs were found unconscious upstairs and taken outside, where CPR was done, but the dogs died.

There was smoke damage throughout the house, Mraz said, adding that the home is unlivable.

A couple of fundraisers have been set up to help the teachers rebuild, including one done by the mother of one of Gill’s students.

“She lost her home, her possessions and her beloved dogs in the same day,” she wrote on social media while sharing the GoFundMe. “I honestly can not imagine the grief she is going through.There are people in our community who are givers, and teachers are at the top of the list. Please help me give back to this wonderful woman.”

Another person who shared the post said that Gill, who has been at Riverside since 2020, had taught her children.

“She is a wonderful and caring teacher,” she wrote.

Mike Harris, vice president of the United Teachers of Wichita union, said Davison is an “amazing educator” and an executive board member of the union.

“Please chip in to help a 259 teacher and her family recover from a devastating fire,” he wrote on social media.

The fundraisers can be found at shorturl.at/VvKb8 and shorturl.at/1rRag