Fire Hits Rhode Island Auto Shredder

A fire at Schnitzer Steel’s Johnston, R.I., scrap metal recycling facility this past weekend reportedly destroyed 600 cars. According to some local press reports, some of the crushed automobiles were stacked so high that firefighters needed to use grapples and forklifts to remove the cars to extinguish the flames. The fire began Sunday afternoon in a stack of crushed automobiles that were waiting to be shredded. There was no damage to any of the equipment at the site, and the company, after taking care of some problems Monday, was given the go ahead to start business as usual later that day.

Fire Chief Andrew Baynes says he plans to propose stricter regulations for the plant. Colin Kelly, a spokesman for the facility, says that the company is working with local town officials to see what steps can be made to reduce the chance of fire or other accident at the yard.

It was not the first fire at Metals Recycling; nor was it the first time the operation has drawn complaints from residents, according to the Providence Journal. The business, one of the largest scrap-metal operations, in Rhode Island, has a long history of explosions and fires and agreed in 2003 to pay $250,000 to settle claims that it illegally hauled, stored and disposed of hazardous waste.

Kelly said that there were no injuries to any of the employees, and one fireman suffered some smoke inhalation.

Kelly adds that the company is making some changes to the facility, including no longer accepting tires at the facility, including tires on crushed vehicles that are delivered to the yard.

With all the water being sprayed on the fire, the scrap metal facility is expected to hire an outside contractor to check its retention pond, which is set up to deal with runoff from the junked vehicles but not in the amounts created by the fire departments that put out the fire.