Crystal City firefighters responding to a call late Thursday morning quickly doused the fire at TLC Motors, 206-208 N. Truman Blvd., but remained on scene for several hours waiting for state fire authorities to visit the scene.
Chief Tony Bova said his department received a call about a fire at 11:38 a.m. The fire was in the sales office building.
“It ended up being electrical, a space heater,” Bova said. “Everything went really smooth. It was out in 20 or 30 minutes.”
He said no one was in the building at the time.
“The business owner, who rents the property, left to go do something,” Bova said. “There were no injuries.”
He said damage from the fire was relatively minor.
“It was mainly smoke damage and some fire damage in the back office,” Bova said. “No cars were damaged. (The business owner) said he’ll move his office to another building on the property for now.”
He said his department contacted the Missouri State Fire Marshal’s Office to verify Crystal City’s findings at the scene. Firefighters remained on scene until about 4 p.m., he said.
“It wasn’t suspicious,” he said. “We were there so long waiting for the state fire marshal. We called them to verify what we thought.”
The Festus and Herculaneum fire departments and the Dunklin, Mapaville and Jefferson R-7 fire districts helped with the call and the Joachim-Plattin Ambulance District also responded.