Ann Pflueger was awakened by a “pop” sound in the wee hours of Sunday morning.

When she got out of bed, she saw flames in the northeast corner of the home she shares with husband Danny at 301 N. First Street, Kingfisher.

“She woke me up and we called the fire department,” Danny said.

The Pfluegers gathered up some belongings and sought shelter for the rest of the night at the First Christian Church, where Danny has a second custodial job, in addition to working for Kingfisher Public Schools.

Kingfisher Fire Department responded to the scene with seven men who worked from 2:58 to 5:30 a.m. containing and extinguishing the blaze.

Thanks to the quick firefighter response, the house is salvageable and appears to have sustained no significant structural damage.

But initial estimates place the cost of repairs at $40,000 and the Pfluegers have no insurance and are now essentially homeless until the house can be restored.

“It’s been my home for more than 50 years,” Danny said. “It’s hard to think about not living there.”

While the Pfluegers are grateful that they and their dog escaped the fire without injury, being displaced from their home was another layer of recent bad news.

Both Ann and Danny are recuperating from recent knee surgeries and Danny hit his head on a recent spill on the ice and is undergoing scans to determine the extent of the damage.

Even if they had the skills to repair the home themselves, they aren’t currently physically able to do so.

But in his 43 years as school custodian, Pflueger has become a familiar face to generations of students and their parents, as well as teachers and administrators.

He and his wife also are both beloved members of the community, including the congregation of the First Christian Church, who were the first to learn of the couple’s plight when they arrived at church Sunday morning to find the couple there, still in their night clothes and in obvious distress.

The church has paid to put the Pfluegers up temporarily in a local hotel and established a fund on their behalf.

Kingfisher Heritage School Principal Shane Hood, Brian Walter of Walter Building Center and Jeremy Lack of Millenium Roofing, who has experience in fire restoration, formed an ad hoc committee to determine what work is needed to restore the home and supervise the process, using donations and a team of volunteers.

Preliminary estimates are $40,000, but more specific costs for each phase of the work that needs to be done willbe announced as they are determined.

“Our hope is that we can have it completed by June,” Walter said.

In the meantime, efforts are being made to find a temporary home for the couple, as well as a storage area for their belongings.

“We’ll have to empty the house while work is being done,” Walter said.

Mrs. Pflueger said her daughter already has taken in the couple’s dog.

Anyone interested in donating to the restoration project can do so via check made out to the First Christian Church with “Danny and Ann Pflueger” in the memo line.

Checks can be dropped off or mailed to the church at 102 S. Seventh St., Kingfisher.

Anyone interested in volunteering to be part of the work crew can do so by contacting Hood via telephone at Kingfisher Heritage School or via email at shoodakingfisher.k12.ok.us.

Hood said he will email volunteers from the list as work dates are set up.

Pflueger said he still can’t wrap his head around the fact that his home is currently uninhabitable, but he is equally overwhelmed by the outpouring of supporthe’s received from the community.

“Everyone has been just great,” he said. “We never expected this.”