Firefighters battle blaze at VW scrap yard

SCOTT TRUXELL/independent editor

The cause of Friday afternoon’s fire at Metal Recycling Technologies in Van Wert has been ruled as accidental.

“The fire originated from the cutting of recycled metal with a torch,” Van Wert Fire Chief Jon Jones said. “The fire spread to a pile of tires that were buried at the back of the compound.”

The Van Wert Fire Department was called to the scene at 7600 US 127, directly north of Towne Center, at 1:35 p.m. Friday. Middle Point, Convoy and Ohio City firefighters were called to provide mutual aid, with Middle Point covering the Van Wert fire station and later sending some personnel to the scene. Van Wert County CERT was also at the scene.

“It was difficult from the beginning since our ambulance was covering a mutual aid EMS run for Wren,” Jones explained. “Our department was in the process of calling back personnel to cover our station when this incident came in. Due to this, we called for mutual aid from Convoy, Ohio City and Middle Point for assistance at the fire and to backfill our station in the instance another fire or EMS incident would come in.”

Firefighters at the scene not only had to battle the flames, but windy conditions and large objects as well. The blaze fueled thick black smoke that was visible for miles.

“The fire’s intensity rapidly grew from the high winds,” Jones said. “The difficulty of extinguishing the blaze was increased by having to move all the large items that were stacked. This mainly consisted of large dump trucks, trailers and tanker trucks. This proved difficult with the limited accessibility and the high volume of smoke for the excavator operator.”

According to Captain Brian Ankney, it took about two hours and 20 minutes to bring the blaze under control. It was confined to materials, including tires and plastic and did not affect any buildings.

There were no injuries reported and the scene was cleared after about three and a half hours.