A pole building, two vehicles and an accounting business were destroyed in an evening fire at the home of longtime South Whidbey residents Steve and Linda Owensby on Monday.

The blaze at their property on Forest Knoll, off Crawford Road, caused an estimated $100,000 in damages, including the razing of a restored 1950 Chevy.

“It’s sickening,” said Steve Owensby, shaking his head as he watched a small army of firefighters blast the building with water and tear apart walls in an effort to extinguish the fire.

No one was seriously injured in the incident, though Ownensby did suffer minor burns to his hands and lost a bit of hair in an early attempt to arrest the flames himself before emergency responders arrived.

South Whidbey Fire/EMS responded to a 9-1-1 report of a fire at the Owensbys’ property at about 5:30 p.m. Firefighters arrived to find smoke pouring from the building and flames visible around the eves of the structure.

“The fire was just glowing from there,” said Mike Cotton, deputy chief of the fire district.

Cotton said it was later determined that burn and scorch patterns on the wall indicate the blaze likely began around a pickup truck. The building was a wood-framed structure with metal siding, containing two car bays, Linda Owensby’s accounting business and a small upstairs loft.

Records stored on the upper story were ignited and were difficult to extinguish — firefighters had to pull siding off the outside of the building to gain access to the area with a fire hose.

According to Owensby, the truck belongs to a friend and he’d been working on it about an hour before he first noticed flames. He’d performed some welding on the vehicle’s undercarriage, and continued working in the shop about 45 minutes. He said he didn’t see any flames or smell burning when he left the building, but saw the glow from his kitchen window a short time later.

“I looked out and saw light and thought, ‘What the hell,’ ” he said.

Running down to the building, he grabbed a fire extinguisher and tried to put out the flames, which he said were focused around the truck, but without success. He then called the fire district, and firefighters spent the next several hours putting out the fire.

Cotton said 25 firefighters were on the scene, using three engines, three water tenders and several command vehicles.

The Owensbys said they have homeowner’s insurance, but the loss was still hard to bear. The damage to Linda Owensby’s accounting business — several computers were destroyed — was catastrophic and losing the restored car was heart wrenching. It had an $8,000 paint job, push-button doors, the works, they said.

“It was so beautiful,” Linda Owensby said.

The couple were grateful, however, that the fire didn’t spread. Other buildings, an RV and another classic car were nearby and were undamaged.

“Thank God my Model A was up at the house,” Steve Owensby said.