FULTON COUNTY, Ga. — A man is in the hospital after he risked his life removing bodies from a funeral home in Fairburn after a massive fire broke out.
The owner of Cook Brothers Funeral Directors and Cremation says he lost everything but didn’t lose what’s most precious to the families he serves - their remains.
People who live nearby and saw the flames and smoke say it was intense.
“Just one of the biggest fires I’ve ever seen,” Keith Flemming told Channel 2’s Tom Jones.
Flemming started recording and captured flames and smoke shooting high into the sky. He was concerned the fire would spread to a home next to the funeral home, and that’s not all.
[DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks]
“Just hoping everybody was OK,” he said. “Also, thinking about with it being a funeral home, just how sad it would be if you had a loved one who had died and was there.”
The remains of five people were inside the building when the fire broke out just after 1 p.m. Sunday on NW Broad Street. Firefighters spent the next nearly 24 hours putting out the fire and making sure it didn’t rekindle.
Fire Chief Cornelius Robinson says the building has been around since the early 1900s, and that posed a problem.
“You got heavy timber. It’s very difficult for any fire department to put out,” he said.
We sent up News Drone 2, and it captured how the fire decimated the funeral home.
The funeral home’s owner, Pastor Tamarkus Cook, came back out to view the damage.
“I’m thankful while I have in essence lost everything that I have, I can report to those families that your loved ones are well,” he said.
Pastor Cook told Jones he and his cousin, Blake Cook, risked life and limb to go in the burning building to get the five bodies that were inside out. of the building.
“The fire was above our heads. The smoke in the room when we were in, it was black smoke. You couldn’t see. You definitely couldn’t breathe,” he said.
The pastor’s cousin is now in the hospital after inhaling too much smoke.
“In my humble opinion, Blake is a hero,” he said.
Investigators are still trying to determine the cause of the fire. They believe it started in the back of the building.
Crews are keeping a truck at the funeral home to make sure the fire doesn’t rekindle.
The loved ones who were removed are at other funeral homes. Pastor Cook says arrangements are being made in Fairburn and surrounding counties to hold viewings and funerals for now.
A GoFundMe has been started to help the pastor’s cousin with hospital expenses.
[SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter]