BEATRICE – U.S. Highway 77 in south Beatrice remained blocked off Monday morning in the area of a massive fire Friday night, that destroyed a central area of the former Dempster Manufacturing Plant. The highway was blocked from Caldwell to Perkins Street.


Traffic was detoured a block east of the scene, and a demolition crew from R.L. Tiemann Construction brought down the central part of the building over the weekend….which was in danger of collapsing onto the highway, commonly known as South 6th Street.


Firefighters remained on scene through the weekend with an aerial ladder truck, to check for hotspots or flareups in the condemned structure. A department firefighter on scene said one of the interior walls of the structure was moving in the high winds on Sunday, and one other section collapsed onto the area where the fire occurred.


Firefighters fought the blaze for over five hours late Friday night and early Saturday…..aided by Beatrice Rural Firefighters and additional aerial truck support from Fairbury firefighters. During the blaze, Beatrice Fire Chief Brian Daake says crews got a break from the fact there was very little wind.


"There was a semitrailer, kind of in the middle of the complex that was on fire. It took about 450-feet of hose for us to get back into that area...also, we had to breach the chain link fence and basically go through a small forest to get into that location."


The plant property has long been overgrown by trees and brush at the rear of the site.  Firefighters also set up protection for a fuel business and tanks immediately to the south, but due to light wind and the smoke drifting to the north, that did not turn out to be a problem.


The abandoned property is eventually scheduled to be demolished and is an EPA clean-up site for which city is seeking Brownfields Grant support.


"EPA has actually been in and cleaned out all of the hazardous materials that they could. So, the chemicals were not present like it would have been, five or ten years ago."


The City of Beatrice has been acquiring the various parcels of the plant through foreclosure, and was expecting to finalize acquisition of the remaining parcels, this year.


The cause of the fire is under investigation and local officials are getting investigation help from the Nebraska Fire Marshal’s Office.


Although the plant property has long been condemned and posted to keep trespassers out, police in the past have found persons inside the structure. Most everything of value had been removed or stolen, from the plant property.