Massive Fire Destroys Home West Of Downtown OKC

Oklahoma City firefighters spent all night battling flames and putting out hot spots at an unusual home west of downtown.

The fire began just before 10 p.m. Wednesday night at 2644 W. Main Street. When firefighters arrived, huge columns of flames and smoke were pouring from a large, metal building.

The home was a traditional one-story building attached to a two-story metal, tube-like structure. It's known as a Quonset hut style-home.

Firefighters say inside the metal building the homeowner – who's lived in the house for 63 years -- had an indoor pool, Jacuzzi, game room, recording studio, toy car collection and 25 chainsaws. Crews say all those items, combined with the style of the metal building, helped fuel the flames.

"Basically, with this type of structure the outside is a heavy gage metal which allows for all that heat and all that smoke to stay inside the structure," Oklahoma City Fire Chief Todd Matthews said.

Firefighters had to battle the flames from outside the building because they could not get inside the structure. They remained on the scene Thursday morning to make sure the fire did not rekindle. Investigators are also waiting for the structure to cool down so they can go inside and try to determine what started the fire.

"Due to the damage I'm probably not going to allow an investigator to go in and look at it because it's a really unsafe structure right now," Chief Matthews said.

The fire department said it would return later Thursday with equipment that would allow investigators to safely enter the home. At that time they'll try and figure out what started the blaze.

No one was hurt in the fire. An estimate on damage has not been determined at this time.