Camdenton funeral home considered “total loss” in Sunday morning fire

Nine different fire agencies worked to put out a fire at the Hedges-Scott Funeral Home in Camden County on Sunday.

Chief Scott Frandsen with the Mid-County Fire Protection District said the building is a total loss.

The funeral home, which is located on Business 5 in Camdenton, caught on fire just before 8:30 Sunday morning.

Firefighters arrived to find heavy fire in the attic of the building. Fire crews said about 10 minutes after they arrived the entire front canopy of the building collapsed.

Fire officials said at one point an interior crew member became disoriented on the second floor and called out a mayday. They said this crew members quickly found a this person and brought the firefighter out of the building safely.

Chief Frandsen said weather conditions and cold temperatures made it difficult to put out the fire. The temperatures throughout the incident were in the low teens which caused trucks and equipment to freeze. Fire officials said the extreme cold forced crews to have to rotate shifts to allow them to warm up. Several firefighters apparently suffered minor hypothermia injuries but none required medical treatment or transport.

Officials were able to determine a furnace started the fire in that area of the building.

It took crews about three hours to get the fire under control and spent several hours on scene monitoring hot spots. No injuries were reported.

Fire officials said tankers shuttled over 150,000 gallons of water during the fire.