A local media outlet reported “extensive” damage from an early morning fire Sunday in St. Robert, Missouri, at Sunset Village of the Ozarks, which serves mostly as retirement housing in the region.
One resident told KY3-TV that residents jumped out of windows to escape the fire. The Pulaski County Daily News reported that one person died and two others were injured. A cooking accident in suspected in the blaze.
The resident told the Springfield station many tenants gathered in the lobby, which was not affected by the fire, to keep warm as the inferno spread.
Here are some images of the fire from KRCG:
Around 15 fire departments battled an early morning fire at Sunset Village of the Ozarks in St. Robert Sunday. https://t.co/SpmvVSv727
— KRCG 13 (@KRCG13) February 14, 2021
📸: Doolittle Rural Fire Protection District pic.twitter.com/zUSA3JNWpO
According to a now-deleted Facebook post from the Doolittle, Missouri, fire department, a total of 15 fire units were summoned to help fight the fire.
“Fire fighting efforts were hampered by the extreme cold causing the water supply to freeze,” the Waynesville fire department stated in a Facebook post.
According to data from a National Weather Service station at nearby Fort Leonard Wood, temperatures were below zero at the time of the fire, with wind chills in the minus teens.
Highway Z (aka Route 66) was temporarily closed due to the fire.
I don’t have an exact date for the complex’s opening, but I found a 1983 article in Newspapers.com from the Houston Herald in Houston, Missouri, that stated Sunset Village was celebrating its anniversary that year.
The property has unique architectural features, as shown here by its main office:
Sunset Village’s architecture suggests it once was a motel at one time, but I’ve found no verification of that. A recent listing in Realtor.com for the property states it was built in 1971.
(Hat tip to Tonya Pike; image of the Sunset Village of the Ozarks via its Weebly site)