A residential machine shop was reported as a total loss after a Sunday morning fire spread through the shop.
On Sunday, Dec. 5 at 5:18 a.m., emergency dispatchers received a call about a structure fire at 13373 Cedar Ave. in rural Frazee. The call was phoned in from a neighbor that lived nearly a half mile away from the location, said Nathan Matejka, assistant fire chief for the city of Frazee.
"This call came in shortly before 5:30 a.m. and, I mean, it got me out of bed," said Matejka. "If you're a fireman, as soon as that pager goes off … two seconds later your heart is doing 120 beats per minute. It gets you going."
He added the fire had already collapsed the roof before firefighters arrived on the scene, so their next concern was making sure none of the fuel tanks explode, which they quickly jumped into action to prevent.
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Matejka also said a neighbor who stored a mini-excavator on the property saw the fire and assisted firefighters in clearing debris from the firefighter's path, which allowed them to enter the structure and wet everything down.
"He was instrumental in helping us take care of (the fire) in a much more timely fashion than what we would have done if we needed to clear (the debris) off by hand," he said.
Members of the Wolf Lake and Detroit Lakes Fire Department also assisted with the firefighting efforts, he said, by supplying manpower and water tanker trucks to the scene.
He added that units were on the way to the scene within five minutes of receiving the call and arrived around 10 to 15 minutes later to the address in rural Frazee.
The cause of the Sunday morning fire is still unknown and the case remains under investigation, said Matejka.
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