OMAK, Wash – Winds got up around 50 mph all across the area on Wednesday. It wasn’t the strongest we’ve seen, not even in the last month, but it strong enough to change the lives of one family living in Omak permanently.

The chain of events that began Wednesday and carried into Thursday was a perfect storm for a disaster.

“My kids heard about it at school, and they ran home. And they sat there with me on the curb and watched it burn,” Clayton Fink recalled of the tragedy.

It was not something they anticipated could happen. First, it was the high winds.

“So the night before last, the winds came,” he said. “I’m inside with my kids. And we hear a crash on top of my roof.”

And that crash?

“They open up the back door, and my roof is flying in the air. And it’s flying over and landing in the neighbor’s yard,” he said.

And right when Fink thought the worst of it was over, more followed.

“I called my landlord. We started by trying to attach the roof down, keep it from the wind blowing the rest of it off,” he explained. “And while we were up there, it was getting dark out. So he’s just like, ‘Hey, let’s worry about this in the morning.'”

Unfortunately, wiring was left exposed, and disaster struck again.

“I got a call at work saying, ‘Hey, your house is on fire,'” he said. “I got to the house, and the fire department was already there. And I kicked in the backside door, and I was yelling for my dog, and it was too late.”

Nobody was home when the fire began, except for their dog Roxy.

“Roxy has been for the past, like six, seven years, been part of the family,” he said. “My son, that’s his best friend. They sleep together, they walk together. He rides a longboard, and she pulls them on the longboard.”

Fink has three kids, and they have gone through a lot in the last five years. After losing their mother and another loved one, they moved to Omak to start a new life.

But on Wednesday, one after the other, they sat watching that new life go up in smoke, almost as fast as their last.

“Everything is a loss. And we’re going to try to have to start over. I don’t see any other way,” he said.

Unfortunately, the family did not have renters insurance and is now staying at a motel, wondering what their next step will be.

According to Simply Insurance, only 57% of Americans that rent have insurance. Some may not believe they need it until it’s too late.