Aurora Fire Department battles huge fire at local general store

The Aurora Fire Department responded to a fire at the Dollar General in town Thursday night.

Bystanders saw smoke and fire billowing from the building.

All employees and customers got out safe.

Temperatures were just above 0 degrees, so firefighters were not only battling the fire, but the elements, as well.

The Aurora Fire Department is completely made up of volunteers, so with their limited resources, they had a hard time keeping firefighters warm.

Fire marshals are still investigating the cause of the fire and assessing the damage, but they do believe the building is a complete loss. 

UPDATE:

Officials say the employees discovered the fire in the back of the store.

They called 911 and got out. Fortunately, no one was injured.

Witnesses say it took over 2 hours to contain the flames.

23 members of the volunteer fire department responded to the call.

“When we got on scene, you couldn’t get inside the building at all anymore it had already built up to that point,” said acting fire chief Glenn Opermeier.

Heavy smoke billowed out of the store while crews worked to get inside.

Witnesses say shelves were tipped over inside, making it difficult to find a path for the fire hose.

“It was just heavy smoke. Once we popped the doors open, you couldn’t see past a couple of feet so we just had to work from the front and back until we finally got enough water put on it that we could get inside,” said Opermeier.

Opermeier says the extreme cold made things difficult as equipment began to freeze during the fire.

Another main issue was the source of fuel for the fire.

“The main difficult problem was the amount of fire load that was inside the building. You just have an awful lot of product that burns,” said Opermeier.

Jaime Hyde says her husband was one of the volunteer fire fighters.

He didn’t make it back home until after four in the morning!

Hyde says the loss of the dollar general will be felt throughout the small town community.

“I had asked him how many people had shown up and he said about three quarters of the department had shown up which is awesome because that means that they got it under control right away. Even though it is probably a complete loss for the business it could have been worse had they not responded as fast as they did,” said Hyde.

The store is a total loss. Hyde says people having already expressed an interest in building a new store.

The next closest convenient store is located 20 minutes away in grand island.

“Anytime you lose a business out of a town of this size, you don’t want to see that happen,’ said Opermeier.

As of now, there are no damage estimates or a timetable for a new store to be built.