Disaster struck one of the best known marinas on Dale Hollow Lake Thursday afternoon when a fire broke out at the gas pumps following an incident involving a rental houseboat.
The marina store and a portion of the adjacent breezeway at Sunset Marina were completely destroyed by the flames Thursday, which erupted about 5:00 p.m.
Two people were reported to have been injured during the fire, Brad Richardson, the Sunset Marina General Manager, received second degree burns and was flown to a Nashville hospital for treatment of those burns.
Tom Allen, one of the co-owners of Sunset Marina, was treated for smoke inhalation and later released from an area hospital.
Allen told the Clinton County News early Friday morning that he was “physically okay.”
Richardson was released from a Nashville hospital, where he was treated for the second degree burns he received Thursday.
Allen co-owns Sunset Marina along with his wife, Angela Allen, and Tony and Bettye Sloan, all of whom are Clinton County natives, with the exception of Bettye Sloan, who was born in Pickett County, Tennessee, but moved to Clinton County after she and Tony were married.
Sunset Marina is located on Dale Hollow Lake’s Obey River section in the southeast area of the lake, adjacent to the Hassler Bridge on Hwy. 111 in neighboring Pickett County, Tennessee.
The Allens and Sloans are also co-owners of the relatively new Marina Rowena on Lake Cumberland, located on Hwy. 558, just a few yards across the Clinton County – Russell County boundary.

Tom Allen recalls the initial blast
Tom Allen spoke with Clinton County News Publisher Al Gibson on Saturday morning, two days after the devastating fire that destroyed about half of his marina structure.
Allen said he was close by the marina store Thursday evening when the first signs of trouble were heard.
“I was about 1,000 feet above the dock in the parking lot near 111, actually flying my drone taking some updated photographs of our cabins and docks and I heard this explosion,” Allen said. “I turned around 180 degrees and I saw a fireball and black smoke had already reached about 30 feet  above the building”
Immediately, the dock co-owner feared the worse.
“My first thought was that an inboard boat had fueled up and turned the key on and had exhaust fumes in the bilge and hadn’t turned the blower on, Allen recalled. “I figured they had exploded the boat so I was preparing myself for this thinking there was probably fatalities and probably people thrown into the water and injured.”
Allen immediately headed toward the marina to investigate what had happened to cause the explosion and fire he could already see just a few seconds after hearing that initial explosion.
“I threw my drone controller into the passenger seat of the truck and headed down there as fast as I could and on my way running out to the fuel dock, I stopped and got the portable fire pump that’s on a wagon,” Allen said.
That portable fire pump was a brand new unit that had passed the test just a couple of days prior, but when he tried to start the pump, an apparent weak battery wouldn’t start the engine, so he was forced to start it with a pull rope, similar to those found on a lawn mower or small outboard boat engine.
“By the time I got it started, flames had already engulfed the front deck and were coming around toward me on the back deck,” Allen remembered.”So before I could even fight the fire, the whole front deck of the dock was on fire.”

Rental houseboat causes fire
“What happened was a rental houseboat was coming in to the fuel dock and we had a pretty strong west wind and when a houseboat gets broadside to a wind like that and catches in the wind, it’s hard to control,” Allen explained. “That houseboat ran up onto the fuel dock and sheared the fuel dispenser off the dock, so gas was spewing up all over the front deck and all over the building.”
“Brad Richardson, my general manager, did the right thing by running over to the emergency fuel shutoff and hit that red button to shut the fuel off, but by that time, fuel had already spewed all over the front deck,” Allen said.
He also said the Richardson had attempted to hold the houseboat off of the dock as it came in hard, but the speed of the boat, pushed by Thursday’s brisk winds, caused him to be unable to prevent the collision.
Allen said that in all likelihood, when the houseboat sheared the gas dispensing pump off of the dock, the force also caused electrical wire to become exposed where gasoline was already flowing onto the dock and nearby marina office walls, tearing away the explosion proof conduit that is required to encase electrical wiring around gasoline supply pumps.
Allen noted that Richardson immediately noticed the bare, exposed electrical wiring and turned to run away from what he feared would be a disastrous situation.
“That explosion happened before he had taken two or three steps away, so he got burned from the explosion,” Allen said, adding that by the time Richardson had shut the supply off and returned to the pump area, the dock had already been covered and saturated with gasoline.
A single spark from those bare wires was the likely culprit in Thursday’s explosion and fire.

Houseboat patrons unharmed
He further noted that before the explosion had occurred, the houseboat that had sheared the gas pump from the dock was shifted into reverse and had moved far enough away from the area to not be involved in the fire that followed that explosion.
“Had it been sitting on top of that dispenser it had just ran over, the people on the front deck of the boat would have probably been seriously, seriously injured, or worse.”
The wind that afternoon just added to the fuel of the fire, Allen noted, and within seconds of the initial impact, the flames were out of control.

Feared the worst outcome
“When they took me off of the dock due to smoke inhalation, I had already resolved that we were going to lose the entire structure,” Allen said. “I looked into the store from the outside and the flames had already gone through the peak of the roof and was headed through the store at just a rapid pace.”
Within minutes, Allen himself was overcome from smoke inhalation, and had to be assisted away from the immediate area of the fire and smoke, and it was then that he was convinced that the entire structure would be a total loss.
“I said right then that this building is going to go and everybody I saw that was coming to help, I just told them to ‘save what you can, save what you can,’” Allen recalled.  “They were saving chairs and pictures off of the walls and whatever they could get a hold of, they were preparing for that building to go up in flames.”

First responders arrive quickly, save adjacent restaurant
Within minutes, the Byrdstown-Pickett County Fire Department was on the scene, and shortly afterward the calls went out to other area fire departments, requesting assistance in the form of additional equipment and personnel
“There were more fire trucks than I’ve ever seen, and ambulances,” Allen said. “They did a goal-line stand in the breezeway. They finally got enough hoses out there, and they opened up the hoses, had two or three people sitting on each hose to hold it down  and they threw so much water in that breezeway that they stopped that fire before it got into the restrooms and into the restaurant.”

Albany Fire
Department responds
The Albany Fire Department was among those nearby fire departments that were called and requested to assist fighting the fire, according to Albany Fire Department Chief Robert Roeper.
Roeper told the Clinton County News on Friday morning that the AFD responded to the request to assist by sending six members of the local department, along with two trucks.
The Chief noted that the call to assist in battling the blaze was a request for a pumper truck as well as a tanker and both were driven to the scene of the fire.
In addition to the Byrdstown-Pickett County Fire Department and the Albany Fire Department, several other units from area fire departments also responded to the call to help, including the departments from Taylor’s Crossroads, East Clay, Alpine, East 52 fire boat, Jamestown, and Fairgrounds.
Additional first responders included a host of law enforcement agencies from Tenneessee, as well as ambulance services and the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency.
Roeper said that the AFD crew on the scene covered several tasks, including pumping water from the lake to be directed toward the flames.
He noted that when the fire was brought under control, it appeared that the marina store had been completely destroyed, along with a section of an adjacent breezeway and the roof covering it.
The restaurant, Sunset Restaurant by The Steel Coop, which is situated just south of the marina store and breezeway, appeared to be undamaged, according to Roeper, who also noted that it appeared that even smoke damage to the popular lake eating establishment would be minimal.
He attributed that to the facility being built with a full dock floor to roof wall that was constructed when the facility was built, and while it wasn’t technically a “fire wall”, it served as such in that it extended completely to the roof of the building, without leaving an open attic space between the store and restaurant.
“It wasn’t a true fire wall because it wasn’t a concrete wall, but because it went all the way to the roof, it worked like a fire wall,” Roeper said.
The Sunset Marina by The Steel Coop restaurant isn’t only a popular eatery with boating enthusiasts on Dale Hollow, but is also a popular eating place for Albany and Clinton County residents who drive the short distance to eat there.
In addition, many of the employees at Sunset Marina, including several high school and college aged youths, are from Clinton County, filling seasonal jobs during the summer tourism months.

AFD responds to a ‘false alarm”
Roeper also noted that the Albany Fire Department’s response to assist in battling the blaze in neighboring Pickett County, Tennessee, wasn’t without a related situation during the call.
The Chief said that while the AFD crew was working on the scene, what was apparently a “false alarm” was called into the local dispatch center regarding an automobile accident on the Wolf River Dock Road, (Hwy. 738), in Clinton County.
“Someone was trying to play a joke just because we had personnel and trucks out of the county,” Roeper said. “What they didn’t realize is that we had more members and trucks on standby still in the county, so their joke didn’t work.”
Roeper added that he left the Sunset Marina scene to meet the crew still on call in Clinton County, and despite a lengthy search along the entire length of the Wolf River Dock Road, no automobile accident was ever located.
Roeper noted that whenever the AFD is requested to respond to an emergency outside of Clinton County, he always first makes sure that the citizens here are completely protected in the event of a local emergency.
“We always leave a full crew and enough equipment here in the county when we respond to an emergency like at Sunset,” Roeper explained to the Clinton County News Friday. “The people here are always covered if something else happens here.”
Roeper also noted that in addition to the local crew that remained on standby while he and the other AFD members were at the Sunset Marina fire, he had also reached out to other nearby departments, which is a common practice among all neighboring fire departments.
“We had the Susie Fire Department as well as the Cumberland County Fire Department notified and on standby in case we needed them in Clinton County,” Roeper added. “I certainly want to thank those departments for agreeing to be on standby for us if needed.”

Damage to private boats minimal
One of the responding fire units on hand during Thursday’s situation, was seen spraying water onto the adjacent boat mooring slips in an effort to prevent the fire from jumping to that structure.
As he was being led from the burning facility, Allen instructed crew members to begin the process of removing the private boats moored immediately to the east of the burning building.
“I told them to cut all of the boats loose, I sent someone down the slips and told them to cut every boat loose and push them away from the building. The wind is blowing away from it and they’ll go in the right direction,” Allen said. “Unfortunately, I just found out that one customer’s boat had some wind damage from hitting up against the dock, but that’s minor.”

Overwhelmed by
Community support
“The first responders were just absolutely amazing, paramedics that treated not only me and Brad, but some firefighters who got overheated and too much smoke and they were taking care of them,” Allen said. “The firefighters, I’ve never seen so many people working together to stop a fire in my life and they did a great job.”
Allen also said that the community outreach and support received in the days following the fire has been overwhelming.
He expressed his deepest gratitude to the people from all across the area, noting that during the fire, people were bringing bottled water to the scene for those fighting the blaze, and that community support continued throughout the night, and even into the following days.
“I just can’t thank the community enough and all of the surrounding counties for everything, it was just amazing,” Allen said.
When the staff showed up for work Saturday morning, breakfast, donuts and drinks had already been delivered for them.
“It’s a very humbling thing. For some of us that have so much pride at times, it’s hard for us to accept such gracious gifts, but I am just so, so thankful for where we live and being in a community that cares so much,” Allen said. “I just can’t say enough.”

Plans to rebuild, finish
2023 tourism season
On its home web page, as well as on its social media Facebook page, Sunset Marina assured its current and future customers that they would be there to serve them throughout the remainder of this 202 tourism season.
“Sunset Marina will be doing everything in our power to complete rentals, to complete rental boat turnovers as scheduled. Nothing will be ‘normal’ except our desire to provide great service.
“Phone service and social media responses may be difficult, so please call/message only if absolutely necessary.
“Annual slip customers: No customer boats or slips were affected. We greatly appreciate your prayers and well-wishes.  Please allow us some breathing room so that we can focus on the immediate things we need to accomplish to continue to serve you into the future.”
Last week’s devastating fire wasn’t the first for Sunset Marina in recent history.
Established in 1946 – one of the original marinas on the lake that was formed in 1943, Sunset Marina suffered a previous fire in 1996 that destroyed the marina store and restaurant. The current Sunset Marina was newly constructed, following that 1996 fire.
For the second time since the Allens and Sloans have been at the helm of Sunset Marina, they are facing a major rebuild in their future, but he was certain that would be the plan going forward.
“Tony (Sloan) and I talked yesterday and we just agreed to wait on the weekend to get over, we’ve got so many customers coming and so many rental boats to get out and we don’t want to spoil anyone’s experience,” Allen explained “We’re waiting until Monday or Tuesday to formulate a plan, but I know the plan will include rebuilding, there’s no other choice but to get back in the business.”
Allen said on Saturday that while the process will certainly be a long and tiring one, he hopes to begin as soon as possible.
“We won’t hang our heads long, we’re kind of sad and disappointed now, but hopefully next week we’ll get enough energy and enough vision and foresight to get out plans for the future, but it will include rebuilding.” Allen said.
He added that he’s not had the stomach yet to go out to the store and dock area to survey the damage, but he’s hoping the steel framework and flotation was not damaged so that it can’t be reused in the rebuilding process, which would cut down on the construction time going forward.
“Hopefully we’ll be back in business, certainly before the 2024 season,” Allen said.
He added that the rebuilding process can’t be rushed due to having to deal with so many agencies that have to approve and sign off on the future reconstruction plans and procedure.
“It’s going to be a slow process, but our plans are to rebuild,” Allen concluded.