The fire started in a 50-foot pile of 3,000 junk cars.
By 7:30 a.m. Friday, firefighters had turned off the water, moved cranes away from the pile of rubble and watched for hot spots. They expected to keep a crew on the scene most of the day to maintain a fire watch.
Dayton police removed blocks and reopened all the streets in the area by 7 a.m.
The cause of the fire was not known, but arson investigators were called.
The smoke plume that could be seen for miles throughout the day caused much concern but apparently little injury.
The initial cell phone call came around 12:30 a.m. about a smell of smoke in the area, but firefighters didn’t find a fire when they responded early Thursday morning.
That scene changed drastically by 3:15 a.m., when fire crews returned to find flames shooting high above a pile of vehicles, appliances and other scrap metal stacked nearly 50 feet high.
Nearly a dozen hours later, at least 40 firefighters and other fire personnel from Dayton and Wright-Patterson Air Force Base continued to battle the blaze with fire-suppression foam and up to 6,000 of gallons of water per minute.
The cause of the fire remained unknown Thursday, but when asked about arson, a weary Dayton Fire Chief Herbert Redden replied, “I’ve got the best fire investigators in the nation. If there is something here, they’ll find it.”
Redden said investigators had identified people they wanted to talk to, including the person who made that first cell phone call. “We would like to talk to this person,” he said.
Smoke billowed from the scrapyard throughout the day as the stench of burning rubber permeated the neighborhood. All of the Dayton Public Schools’ 32 schools were alerted to keep students inside because of the smoke. At nearby Children’s Medical Center, the hospital turned off its fresh-air intake and advised people to stay inside.
An early morning advisory for residents within a two-mile radius to stay inside was lifted around 4:30 p.m., when Redden said initial testing showed no hazardous contaminants in the smoke. He said the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency would continue to test air quality in the area for at least a month, however.
Frank Clay, chairman of the Fire Science Technology department at Sinclair Community College, said the Regional Air Pollution Control Agency issues permits to Franklin Iron & Metal for dust arising from the yard’s car shredder, storage piles and dirt roads. An October inspection found no problems, he said.
Franklin Iron’s general manager, Greg Clouse, said he had no idea what sparked the fire and he offered no estimate of the cost of the damage or how long the scrap and recycling yard might be out of operation.
“Our top priority is securing the area, preventing any further spread of the fire and preserving the safety of the area’s natural resources and the neighborhood,” Clouse said shortly after 5 p.m. Thursday “We’re working as best as we can to get the fire out as soon as we can.”
Franklin Iron & Metal employs 100 workers, Clouse said. The company has been in business at the First Street location since the 1970s. It has two other locations in Dayton and one in Springfield, according to its website.
Cranes owned by the company assisted in the effort to put out the fire, separating the burning pile of metal into smaller piles, allowing firefighters better access to the low-lying flames.
Several small explosions could be heard coming from the pile. Redden said, “I have no earthly idea” what caused the explosions but said they may have come from airbags and ammunition owners had left in their cars.
Michele Simmons, the city’s environmental compliance coordinator, said runoff from the fire suppression effort shouldn’t flow into the city’s storm sewer system because Franklin has its own water treatment process on site to capture oil and grease from vehicles.
Firefighters had the fire 90 percent extinguished shortly after 7 p.m. Thursday.
Redden said crews would remain on the scene throughout the night to monitor the situation.
He said the city would try to recoup its costs from Franklin once an investigation is completed.
Redden said no one was injured fighting the fire, but a Wright-Patterson Air Force Base firefighter suffered chest pains — “a light faint” — around 4 p.m. and was transported to a local hospital. He was later reported to be in good condition.
The fire came two days after a bomb disposal unit from WPAFB removed an artillery shell from the scrapyard.
Workers found the shell, which was 8 inches in diameter and stood 30 inches tall. The discovery closed about six blocks of East First Street for more than four hours.
Staff Writers Margo Rutledge Kissell and Katie Wedell contributed to this story.
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