LAKE OZARK, Mo. (LakeExpo.com) – The fire that destroyed Camp Bagnell Restaurant on Thursday afternoon sent one woman and six firefighters to the hospital.

View Photos of the scene of the fire

The woman is reported to have suffered smoke inhalation and five firefighters had heat exhaustion from battling the blaze all afternoon in 98F heat. One firefighter was injured in a traffic accident while shuttling water. All the firefighters were treated by late Thursday evening and released by Lake Regional Hospital.

The source of the fire is believed by witnesses to have origination in the bedroom of an apartment in a complex adjacent to Camp Bagnell Restaurant. Both buildings burned to the ground.

“I believe this was an accidental fire,” Lake Ozark Assistant Chief Matt Birdsley said. “It looks like it started in one of the eight apartments.”

The Lake Ozark fire marshal was on the scene last night and the state fire marshal arrives Friday to further investigate.

When firefighters arrived at approximately 2 p.m., Thursday, the apartment building was an inferno with 50% of the building consumed by flames visible through the roof.

Firefighters immediately moved to a defensive position on the apartment complex in an attempt to protect Camp Bagnell Restaurant. They could not enter the building through the metal roof, but a crew went into the restaurant before flames moved from the apartment building into the attic space, eventually forcing firefighters back outside as the ceiling threatened to collapse. The metal roof melted completely.

At one point, the fire created a plume of smoke seen for miles around the entirety of Lake of the Ozarks.

A ladder truck suppressed the fire from above as firefighters worked hand lines on the ground to finally contain the scorcher. Birdsley said the heat was brutal on firefighters making rest and rehydration an absolute necessity to continue working through the afternoon and until midnight.

Access to water also proved challenging. Without hydrants, crews had to pump water from the Osage River and shuttle it in from Rick’s C-Store.

The fire occurred at a time when local resources were spread thin, according to Assistant Chief Birdsley. Just before it broke out, Mid-County and Sunrise Beach Fire were fighting a house fire and Osage Beach Fire was in the middle of controlling a blaze that destroyed a home on El Terra Road.

The multiple fires depleted resources in the lake area forcing Birdsley to call in firefighters and equipment from as far away as Jefferson City, Lebanon, St. Robert, and Cole County.

“We had over a dozen mutual aid companies respond,” Birdsley said.


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