High winds and access to the scene made it difficult for firefighters to battle a fire at Acosta Trucking last Monday afternoon.
According to Alliance Volunteer Fire Department Chief Troy Shoemaker, firefighters were dispatched to the scene at about 12:40 p.m. and cleared the scene at 8:02 p.m. Fourteen firefighters from the AVFD, 10 from the Hemingford Volunteer Fire Department, the Box Butte County Road Department and several local residents and people from area businesses aided in extinguishing the fire.
“When we got dispatched, we got dispatched to a fully-involved structure with explosions occurring,” said Shoemaker. “The wind played a factor with us. The advanced progression of the fire by the time we got dispatched was a factor as well, and then trucking in water. All those kind of things when you have a fire out in the county.
“There was heavy black smoke blowing to the north, and that’s the same direction that we were coming in from,” Shoemaker said. “It was a fairly significant-sized shop building that had living quarters on the south end of it. You can imagine all the stuff that was in a shop that helps maintain a fleet of vehicles for a trucking company. Obviously, there’s going to be fuels and oils and all those things that it takes to maintain a fleet of vehicles.”
The State Fire Marshal was contacted to conduct an investigation into the cause of the fire, Shoemaker said. The fire remains under investigation, but they believe the fire is accidental in nature. He explained that the access to the structure was a challenge to overcome as they fought the fire. No injuries were reported, but the structure, Shoemaker said, is considered a catastrophic loss for the owner.
Shoemaker advises people to keep the roads clear when there is a fire, as traffic can hinder the efforts to control the fire.
“This fire was a significant fire that produced a massive black cloud on the horizon that everybody could see,” said Shoemaker. “Traffic hindered us a little bit getting out there. Everybody wanted to go see what was going on, and sometimes that hinders first responders’ responses to an incident. Fortunately, it was something that we overcame, but we just ask people to not follow the smoke cloud because you can bottleneck a county road or even a city street that would hamper our response in getting there safely. We know everybody’s curious, but it can have an effect on what we can do and how efficiently we can perform our tasks.”
(Photos courtesy of John Sampson)
