West Tulsa Neighbors Pull Together After House Fire

A West Tulsa couple getting ready for church were shocked to find their garage on fire at about 8:15 Sunday morning. Homeowner George Hughes said the first hint of something wrong was when his wife asked him if he'd lit a candle.

"No, I have no idea where a candle's at," he answered.

About that time, a smoke alarm went off at their residence in the 7800 block of South 26th West Avenue.

Hughes said he opened the door to the garage and saw flames on the floor between the refrigerator and stove where his wife was cooking a roast.

"She started cooking a roast about 30 minutes earlier," he told News On 6.

Hughes said he told his wife to call 911 then tried to open the garage doors, but they weren't working. He grabbed a hose but by then the fire was already spreading to some cabinets, and the smoke was too thick.

"I started in and got a couple of breaths of smoke and had to get out of there," Hughes said.

The family lost their garage with two vehicles to the fire. The fire was just spreading to the attic when Tulsa firefighters put it out.

"We aggressively attacked the fire and extinguished it within 15 minutes," said Captain Danny Kaiser, Tulsa Fire Department. Kaiser said a firefighter was injured and taken to the hospital but did not disclose the nature of the injury.

George Hughes said he was proud of the work the department did to save his home.

"We've got a good fire department here in this town of Tulsa," he said.

The Hughes family also has good neighbors - West Tulsa residents turned out to help while fire crews were still on scene. Hughes said he and his wife have lived at the address for 19 years and many of his neighbors have been there even longer.

Hughes said he and some other neighbors had just finished building a storage shed for a women, and she's already said he can be the first one to use it - to store things while they rebuild.

"We have a lot of good neighbors," he said. "It's kindly a setback, but we know there's the Lord, and he'll help us through it."