Firefighters sent to Beatrice auto dealership

BEATRICE - Firefighters in a southeast Nebraska city were called to a downtown car and truck dealership early Saturday morning, after police observed smoke coming from the building.

Beatrice Firefighters were sent to Premier GMC, formerly Carriage Motors, at Sixth and Market Streets. Fire Captain Corey Lieneman says there was no fire.

"There's an oil-burning unit that they use to heat it. It looks like it was burning a little richer than normal, so we disconnected the power to it. There was a little bit of light smoke in the main part of the (service) building here....no flame...just some smoke coming out of it."

The smoke was coming from the service area of the dealership on the east side and apparently did not get into the showroom and office area of the business.
When firefighters were sent to the scene at 4:37 a.m., Southeast Communications was unable to make immediate contact with dealership personnel to unlock the building. But firefighters were able to gain entrance to the shop area along the north side.

Firefighters were on scene for about a half-hour.  As for response time, no problem there…..Beatrice Fire and Rescue Headquarters is on the next city block south of the dealership.