BIG SPRING - 68-year-old Jimmy Graves makes a living by helping people buy used tires at a cheap price. When a call came in on Saturday morning of a woman needing a tire, he went outside to check, leaving his stove on while cooking breakfast. All it took was just a few minutes and his whole life would change.
"I just walk back in the house and the kitchen cupboard is just blazing and I knew I couldn't put it out so I just walked out the door and called 911," Graves said.
It was a home built by his own parents back in the 1960's. He's been living in the house for roughly 30 years. Both his kids and his grandchildren all grew up there, but on Saturday, Graves watched as flames quickly took over his home, impossible to get to his dog who was tied up on the porch.
Firefighters were unable to go into the house because of ammunition from his gun collection and the stucco walls kindling the fire.
"Bad ordeal, pretty sad," Graves said.
"He didn't have insurance," Eba Kinard, his daughter, explained.
"Couldn't afford it," Graves said.
Graves says he is on a fixed income and doesn't quite know where to go from here. His daughter has spent the last couple of days helping him salvage anything they could but all that's left are the clothes on his back.
"Maybe a handful of pictures and he kind of salvaged his wheelbarrow and some tools, but that was about it. Pretty much anything made out of metal," Kinard said. "I was looking yesterday for his old wedding rings and all of his mementos that you know, he cherished. And I didn't find nothing."
