Fires hit two Florida scrap yards

Two fires, potentially with different causes, hit separate scrap yards just 45 miles apart from each other in Florida the weekend of May 29-31, 2015.

Friday, May 29, firefighters were called to Garden Street Iron & Metal in Fort Myers, Florida, and were reportedly able to snuff out a small fire within 20 minutes.

According to a report on the WZVN TV website, a 10-to-12-foot-high pile of scrap caught fire at the Garden Street property.

Garden Street owner Robert Webber told WZVN that a hose had recently been removed from a nearby fire hydrant after fire inspectors from the city of Fort Myers requested it as a result of their inspection.

“We had to disconnect it, but we had it for just this kind of reason, and today it would have been valuable,” Webber told the TV station.

Fires in stockpiles that feed auto shredders were a topic of discussion at the 2015 Bureau of International Recycling (BIR) World Recycling Convention in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, in May.

BIR Shredder Committee member George Adams Jr. of SA Recycling, Anaheim, California, urged plant operators to keep a close eye on shredder feedstock stockpiles, saying the presence of batteries containing lithium is leading to more stockpile fires.

Adams urged members to maintain a low inventory of feedstock or to keep their inventory in piles of 250 tons or less so any fire can be contained or extinguished easily.

Two days after the Garden Street fire, Sunday, May 31, firefighters responded to what was described as “a massive plume of smoke” at Allied Recycling, near Arcadia, Florida, just 45 miles from Fort Myers.

A report on the WBBH TV website says as of Monday, June 1, “material was still smoldering and a fire truck remained on [the] scene.”

An Allied Recycling manager quoted by WBBH told the TV station he believes a disgruntled form employee may be responsible for the fire. “Somebody intentionally set off the fire,” Chester Johnson told WBBH. The station says the cause of the fire is under investigation.