FAIRBURN, Ga. — A fire at a funeral home in the metro Atlanta area on Sunday afternoon burned through the night and into Monday morning.
The flames destroyed the building and risked ruining the remains of five bodies still inside, if not for the efforts of staff and firefighters.
Channel 2’s Steve Gehlbach was in Fairburn, where the owner of the Cook Brothers Funeral Home said through quick action and a good amount of help, all of the remains were taken out of the building unharmed.
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At the time of the fire, five sets of remains were scattered throughout the large funeral home, including in the chapel where there was a viewing just that day.
While the left and center portions of the mortuary collapsed, Cook Brothers owner Tamarcus Cook told Channel 2 Action News that all of the dead waiting for burial or cremation were able to be taken out with dignity.
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The Fairburn Fire Department, and residents living near the funeral home, shared videos and photos of the fire raging at the funeral home, which started around 1:30 p.m. on Sunday afternoon.
Cook told Channel 2 Action News that he rushed to the funeral home as soon as he got word of the fire.
“The only thought I had was to get the loved ones out of the building,” Cook said.
He told Gehlbach that his family, staff and firefighters all worked together, jumping into action to get the remains out of the building instead of leaving them to burn inside.
Cook said his cousin Blake ran inside, risking his life and is now in the hospital for treatment after breathing in smoke.
“If it were not for Blake’s efforts, going in with me, in fact he helped me break the doors down to get into the building, I don’t know that I would be standing here reporting that everyone made it out the way that they did,” Cook said.
All of the remains that had been inside were taken to other funeral homes and facilities that stepped up to help in this time of need.
The Cook Brothers Funeral Home is the former Hershel McDaniel Funeral Home, which was sold to the Cooks in 2019.
The former funeral director said that there’s a lot of history in the structure, the main building having been built almost 100 years earlier. The chapel was added in the 1960s.
However, the former funeral director said that the way it was built mad him fear that if it ever caught fire, this was what would happen.
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