Firefighters fight blaze at Monongahela scrap yard
Monongahela firefighters on the scene of a blaze at Monongahela Iron & Metal Co. on Friday
Monongahela firefighters on the scene of a blaze at Monongahela Iron & Metal Co. Friday.
A fire in a Monongahela scrap yard on Friday caused no injuries but sent acrid smoke billowing into the air for hours.
Firefighters from the Mon Valley city and other nearby towns spent hours getting the flames under control at Monongahela Iron and Metal in the 600 block of East Main Street.
The fire was reported a little before 10 a.m. Two hours later, a crane operator from the business was lifting smoldering cars one at a time while fire crews hosed down that area of the property, where there also was a large container.
鈥淩ight now we鈥檙e still in the process of extinguishing the fire,鈥� said Monongahela Assistant Chief Aaron Benney. 鈥淭here were about 50 cars next to the dumpster that were stacked up, that we鈥檙e taking apart right now. In the dumpster were tires, car parts.鈥�
Bill Hearn, a firefighter from Benney鈥檚 department, said that early on, gas was leaking from several 100-pound propane tanks in another area of the yard and caught fire. Firefighters used water to cool down the tanks, whose hoses had burned up, before turning the valves off.
A larger oxygen tank also was at the site, and they worried about it being exposed to the heat.
None of the tanks exploded, but Hearn did hear a 鈥減opping sound鈥� he thought were some of the parts of vehicles combusting.
Benney said the Washington County hazardous-materials team was 鈥渟izing up the situation with all the runoff鈥� at the site. He said the water had so far been contained and prevented from reaching the neighboring Monongahela River.
The state Department of Environmental Protection also responded to the scrap yard to look for runoff in nearby waterways, agency spokesman Neil Shader said. He wasn鈥檛 sure whether a full-scale investigation would be launched by the department.
Benney said it was 鈥渉ard to say鈥� where exactly the fire started, or what caused it.
John Wray, owner of the 100-year-old metal yard, didn鈥檛 know, either. He wasn鈥檛 there when it started.
鈥淣o one was hurt,鈥� he said, 鈥渂ut my pride.鈥�
Trains were stopped from running on the Norfolk Southern line next to the property, and a section of East Main stayed closed into the afternoon.
Meanwhile, Peoples Natural Gas spokesman Barry Kukovich said a nearby gas line was shut off as a precaution.
Staff writer Angela Roberts contributed to this report.