Marina fire at Lake of the Ozarks ruled accidental
Gabrielle Teiner
LAKE OZARK, Mo. (KMIZ)
A fire at a Lake of the Ozarks marina early Monday was accidental, investigators say.
The office of the State Fire Marshal was unable to eliminate an electrical issue with a house boat as the cause, a Department of Public Safety spokesman said Monday.
No one was hurt after a fire that broke out around 1 a.m. Monday, according to a social media post from the Missouri State Highway Patrol’s Troop F.
The post states troopers responded to a large fire at Wheelhouse Marina. Several docks and boats were engulfed in flames, pictures from the scene show.
Camille Pruitt has lived on the lake for six years. She said she didn’t know boats fires could look what she saw under the marina Monday morning.
“It looked like a huge inferno going on under the roof,” Pruitt said. “And then even spreading out and poking up through the roof. It started burning through the the roof panels and it was just unbelievable.”
Pruitt said she was getting ready to head to bed when she heard what sounded like distant gunshots or thunder.
“There was a really loud, long rumbling, almost like a thunder, but deeper than that,” Pruitt said. “And it went on for quite a while and then a really big boom.”
She looked out her kitchen window and noticed flames, so she turned on the Camden County scanner. She heard about the fire and rushed over to the scene.
She sat and watched for hours as law enforcement battled the intense flames. She said the smell of gasoline was inescapable.
“The water was literally on fire for quite a ways out into the cove,” Pruitt said.
The Missouri Department of Natural Resources said it’s looking at environmental restoration after an incident like this.
“We’re looking at the fuel spill and the burned boats themselves at the bottom of the lake,” DNR Emergency Operations Unit Chief Cody Garner said. “What needs to happen as far as keeping the environment safe, getting the lake cleaned up and everything.”
Garner said though most of the fuel burned up in the fire, DNR put boom in the water to help absorb the rest.
“It will absorb the fuel and the oil and not the water,” Garner said. “And then as that happens, then they’ll come in and they’ll start lifting the boats, raising those up, floating them and pulling them out of the water.”