A boiler that burns waste oil is blamed for a fire Thursday morning that destroyed the shop building of a trucking company in rural Scotts Bluff County about 5-miles northeast of Scottsbluff near Lake Alice
     The loss to Triple C Holdings Trucking is estimated at $2-million dollars for the structure and content.
A separate residence was not damaged and no one was hurt, although one firefighter was taken to the hospital with heat exhaustion.
Scottsbluff Rural Fire Chief Carissa Schank says the call came in shortly before 7:00 a-m and that the shop and attached office were fully engulfed with thick smoke when the first crews arrived at the scene about 10 minutes later.
Chief Schank says the Mitchell and Minatare fire departments were immediately asked to send tankers because of the distance to water.
When firefighters had trouble getting to the source of the fire because of the metal skin of the building, mutual aid calls went out to the Scottsbluff, Gering Rural, Morrill, Bayard, Banner County, and Western Nebraska Regional Airport fire departments.
Schank says the fire was knocked down in about 90 minutes and controlled about 9:15 with the use of heavy equipment, but the last units didn’t leave until about 1:00. All together, some 35 firefighters were involved.
Chief Schank says the State Fire Marshal was called and the investigator determined the cause of the fire was the faulty waste oil boiler.