LEBANON, Mo. (KY3\/Gray News) \u2014 Customers at a McDonald\u2019s restaurant in Missouri narrowly escaped before the roof collapsed during a fire.<\/p>\n
Ansley Tidwell, 11, visited the McDonald\u2019s in Lebanon with her grandmother Saturday. But as soon as they walked through the front doors, they realized something was wrong.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe walked in, and instantly we smelled the smoke,\u201d Ansley said. \u201cWe just went up to order our food, and we asked if it was OK and stuff. And the lady said it was probably gonna be OK, so we didn\u2019t, like, think anything of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The pair sat down and began eating, but conditions quickly deteriorated. As smoke began filling the dining room, employees instructed everyone in the lobby to evacuate immediately. Moments later, the building gave way.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was scary\u2026 Like, the walls and the ceiling, they all just fell down and stuff on the corner,\u201d Ansley recalled. \u201cThe ceilings and the walls, they just collapsed. It was like \u2018pfoom.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Flames quickly spread through the building, sending heavy smoke billowing into the air and reaching nearby power lines.<\/p>\n
Fire officials reported the blaze likely ignited in the kitchen before engulfing the rest of the restaurant.<\/p>\n
According to the Lebanon Fire Department, the Missouri State Fire Marshal ruled that the official cause was \u201cundetermined.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Ansley\u2019s family, the loss of the building hits close to home. Her grandmother previously worked at that McDonald\u2019s location, making it a familiar community hub rather than just another fast-food stop.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was like, sad for her,\u201d Ansley said. \u201cBecause a lot of people would come here, hang out. Drink their coffee.\u201d<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 KY3 via Gray Local Media, Inc. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LEBANON, Mo. (KY3\/Gray News) \u2014 Customers at a McDonald\u2019s restaurant in Missouri narrowly escaped before the roof collapsed during a fire. Ansley Tidwell, 11, visited the McDonald\u2019s in Lebanon with her grandmother Saturday. But as soon as they walked through the front doors, they realized something was wrong. \u201cWe walked in, and instantly we smelled<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35915,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[30279,30283,30278,2895,30276,4455,30281,3364,30277,3642,3640,3638,3641,3639,30282,160,30280],"class_list":["post-35914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-missouri","tag-ansley-tidwell","tag-cause-of-fire","tag-customers-escape","tag-fire","tag-fire-at-mcdonalds","tag-lebanon","tag-lebanon-fire-department","tag-mcdonalds","tag-mcdonalds-fire","tag-missouri","tag-missouri-dining","tag-missouri-food","tag-missouri-grocery-stores","tag-missouri-restaurants","tag-missouri-state-fire-marshal","tag-restaurant","tag-roof-collapse"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/vive.im\/@dc\/117351615234043221","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35914\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diningandcooking.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}