(Update: In less than 24 hours more than 400 people have donated to the GoFundMe account to help the Flanagan family. As of 10 a.m., the total donated was more than $36,000.)

MENDON - Fire torched their Christmas presents and burned everything except the clothes on their back, but the spooky Netflix series "Stranger things" likely saved the lives of a Mendon couple and their four young girls.

That's the way Police Chief David Kurczy explained how the family was able to escape a fast-moving inferno that engulfed their 93 North Ave. home in minutes just before midnight on Thursday. The fire was so intense, Deborah and Kevin Flanagan and their four girls ages 1, 5, 7, and 10, were only wearing the clothes on their back when fire crews first arrived at 11:42 p.m. Standing with their dog, they had no shoes on and carried two cellphones, one of which they used to call in the fire. And that's the only possessions they have left now, Kurczy said.

Deborah Flanagan was apparently up late watching a marathon session of "Stranger Things" when she heard a noise in the back kitchen. Thinking it may be the dog getting into something she got up to check and saw the entire back of the house was on fire. The house was being renovated and expanded and was not yet complete. Kurczy said the walls were still just stick framing and insulation with no drywall - a set-up that burns very quickly.

Deborah was able to quickly rouse her family to safety but the house was soon a total loss.

"Thank God she was up watching 'Stranger Things' or we'd be talking about a completely different story here," Kurczy said.

The cause of the fire is still under investigation by the Fire Marshal's Office which also had to look into a nearby fatal fire in Oxford last night and a barn fire in Oxford.

Fire crews worked for more than four hours to put out the Mendon fire and mop up the embers around a few standing frame walls of the home. All else was smoldering rubble.

Kurczy has started a GoFundme page for the family, knowing they lost everything and it being so close to the holidays. His goal is $30,000 and generous donations have already pushed the take past $15,000 in five hours. To donate go to www.gofundme.com/flanagan-family-house-fire-relief.

"I came up with that figure just trying to imagine what it would take to rent a house for a year and maybe get a little furniture," he said. "I mean really, if you think about clothes and everything else, maybe that's $50,000 but I'm hoping there will be some other donations."

The Flanagans told Kurczy, who is also the acting fire chief, that the house was under renovation for more than a year and was a "labor of love" and was nearly finished.

The extreme cold overnight worsened the firefighting conditions and salt and sand trucks were on North Avenue and nearby Rte. 16 into the morning to keep the ice off the road.