Smoke scare at downtown Lawrence funeral home traced to HVAC motor

Multiple fire units rushed to a downtown Lawrence funeral home just after noon Monday after a report of a structure fire, but Lawrence-Douglas County Fire Medical crews found no building blaze inside Warren-McElwain Mortuary.

Firefighters entered the mortuary at 120 W. 13th St. and found only an odor of smoke. Battalion Chief Aaron Flory said crews traced the problem to a seized motor on an HVAC handler on the roof, a mechanical failure that created the smoke scare without turning into a fire in the building.

The quick response mattered because the mortuary sits in a busy part of downtown Lawrence, where an actual fire could have forced wider disruption for nearby businesses, traffic and families coming and going for services. Instead, crews were able to inspect the building, locate the source and resolve the issue without the kind of prolonged emergency scene that can shut down a block.

Warren-McElwain said the Lawrence funeral home was able to continue operating Monday afternoon after the problem was fixed. That helped limit the effect on a site that serves sensitive family needs and also operates its own crematory. Even a brief interruption at a funeral home can carry weight for people arranging services, making a false alarm feel far larger than the equipment failure behind it.

The mortuary’s local history stretches back more than a century. The business says its roots run to Schubert Funeral Home, founded in 1904, and Funk Mortuary, founded in Lawrence in 1909. Those operations later merged in 1953 to form Cooper & Warren, and the Lawrence funeral home moved into a new building at 120 W. 13th Street in 1971.

Warren-McElwain says the company has been locally owned and operated since 1904, a long run that has made it a familiar name in Lawrence and Douglas County. Monday’s response showed how quickly firefighters can turn a report of smoke into a routine equipment problem, and how much that kind of rapid check protects the downtown core from a situation that could have become much worse.