Fire Destroys More Than Just Garage For West Tulsa Family

An early morning fire not only destroyed a west Tulsa family's garage; they also watched as their family business went up in flames.

You may not think of a garage fire as anything life-changing, but for one couple, the garage was their livelihood.

"I don't know, just devastation. I don't know what we're gonna do," Katie Bowdler said.

Bowdler was having a hard time finding the words to describe what happened overnight.

12/4/2014 Related Story: Cause Of West Tulsa Garage Fire Under Investigation

She said she and her fiancée had just left to go to Walmart around 1:00 Thursday morning when they got a call that their garage was on fire.

Tulsa fire is still investigating how it started, but said it was already a total loss when they arrived.

Because there were things like paint and other chemicals inside, they had to be extra careful.

"In this case there was potential danger, but we made sure we all our protective gear on including our SCBA's," Jerry Benefield with Tulsa Fire said.

SCBA's are basically masks. Firefighters needed them because the smoke was toxic.

Bowdler's fiancée made his living running an auto paint shop out of the garage. He had put his life savings into it and lost everything in the fire.

The losses weren't just expensive equipment like air compressors and paint guns.

"I mean he had stuff in here that he and his grandpa built back when he was a kid, like motors and stuff," Bowdler said.

On top of all of this, Bowdler said one of their dogs, Tundra, died in the fire.

She said the family has a baby on the way, and are already struggling financially, and their livelihood is now a pile of rubble.

"When we left, we were fixing to paint a car and that was going to be our, you know, way to survive," she said.

She said she doesn't know the plan yet, but they'll have to find another job to make ends meet.