About 15 people were eating at the Freeway 147 Truck Stop west of Mandan Saturday afternoon, when someone rushed in to warn that a car parked in front of the building was on fire.

The fire would end up reaching the building, cracking windows and damaging the roof, said Sonia Ozbun, the truck stop's general manager.

She said everyone evacuated the building - which houses a restaurant and convenience store - and attempts were made to extinguish the fire using a fire extinguisher and buckets of water. But it didn't work, she said.

Ozbun, when interviewed at about 4:30 p.m. Saturday, said cleanup was under way, but customers were already back in the convenience store buying items, and the restaurant was prepared to serve food, again.

She said the person who warned them of the fire was a customer who saw it while filling his vehicle. She said after being told of the fire, they called the Mandan Rural Fire Department, got an answering machine message and then called 911.

Mandan Rural Fire Chief Lynn Gustin said the fire department received the page at 3:33 p.m. and arrived on scene at 3:58 p.m. He said their response time in that area - with the fire trucks at the fire hall about five miles away, at 3814 34th St. - would typically be about 10 to 15 minutes. But he said a longer response time can happen, sometimes.

"It's a volunteer (department) deal," he said.

He said it was a Saturday, sometimes they can be short of guys, with people out of town or shopping in Bismarck.

"We don't like it, either, when things like this happen, but it happens sometimes,"he said.

(Reach reporter Virginia Grantier at 250-8254 or at virginia.grantier@;bismarcktribune.com.)