SPRINGFIELD — A major fire that took hours to extinguish and polluted nearby residential neighborhoods with clouds of thick black smoke was likely caused by a battery that was mixed with car parts and other scrap metal.
Fire Chief Bernard J. Calvi recently met with the City Council’s public safety committee to discuss concerns about the fire and scrap metal yards in general following the Aug. 8 fire at Chet’s Auto Wrecking and Scrap Metal.
The fire at the yard on Page Boulevard started at about 6:30 p.m. in a 60-foot mountain of car parts and other metal. Firefighters had it under control in six hours, and the scene was turned over to the owners by 10:30 a.m. the next day, Calvi said.
“Our hypothesis to what caused the fire … is that there was a supposed (nickel-cadmium) battery that went into the stream when they scooped the pile up,” he said.
Security video of the scrapyard captured the fire’s ignition, which left investigators to suspect the battery ignited it. The official cause is listed as undetermined, because there is little evidence left following the blaze, Calvi said.
“It was not tampered with … there was no malicious act that caused the fire. For all intents and purposes, it was an industrial accident,” Calvi said.
About 75 city firefighters responded to the blaze, and departments from surrounding communities assisted, mainly manning stations and answering other calls in the city, he said.
It took about 4.5 millions of gallons of water to extinguish the stubborn blaze. A heavy equipment operator from the company, under the direction of fire officials, broke down the flaming pile, while firefighters blasted water on flames, he said.
“We were able to mitigate it in a timely fashion with no real spread,” Calvi said. “Fires like this have been known to go on for several days, and we were able to knock it down in six hours.”
City Councilors repeatedly praised firefighters for a job well-done, but said they are concerned about future fires that could be worse. No evacuations were required at the Aug. 8 fire, but city officials were prepared to do so if air quality worsened.
“My understanding is the junkyard fire was a freak incident,” City Councilor Lavar Click-Bruce said, commending Calvi and the firefighters from preventing the blaze from spreading.
City Councilor Brian Santaniello said he remembers a chlorine fire in the late 1980s that did cause major evacuations and asked Calvi how the Fire Department tracks businesses that use dangerous chemicals.
Any company that has a certain amount of hazardous chemicals has to file a report with the Fire Department annually. There is one chemical company in the city, several food storage facilities that use ammonia for refrigerants and several others that use industrial chemicals. All are located in industrial zones, Calvi said.
Santaniello said he also is concerned about tire fires, since there are other junkyards and stores that have large quantities of them.
“Once fires get burning, we usually have to use foam to put them out,” Calvi said. “If one were to catch fire, it would be a black, smokey fire.”
Calvi said the use of foam is typically a last resort because of environmental concerns, although the department does have firefighting foams that do not contain PFAS, or “forever chemicals.”
Although there is widespread use of lithium batteries, Calvi said he is more concerned about fires at homes.
“Lithium-ion batteries give off a gas when they overheat, and that gas is flammable,” he said. “Our big concern is scooters and electric bikes being charged in homes and hallways (that) could catch fire.”
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