For the second time in three days, a blaze at the same south end metal recycling yard posed challenges for firefighters.
It took fire crews over an hour to extinguish the two-alarm blaze that destroyed a pile of junked cars in the scrap yard at Palmer Recycling, at 3191 Albion Road. There was also a fire at the same scrap yard on Sunday, and last September there was a significant fire at the site.
A large plume of black smoke, drifting toward the northeast, could be seen from much of south Ottawa around 11 a.m. Local resident Natalie Martel said she spotted the smoke while driving on St. Laurent Blvd and near Conroy Road “It was thick and black, real black,” she said. “We saw it everywhere. The smoke was really big.”
Ottawa Fire Service Captain Dave Clarke said tires among the vehicles that caught fire possibly caused the thick black smoke. “(The vehicles) were all in a huge mound and they were burning.”
Investigators are still working to determine how the fire started. There were no injuries, and no damages.
Since fire hydrants on Johnston Road were out of service, fire crews had to use a relay pump and get water from several hundred meters away.
Clarke said the firefighters were prepared this time and using the other hydrants was not an issue.
On Sunday, firefighters responding to the fire at the recycling yard discovered hydrants not in service.
Tammy Rose, Ottawa’s manager of drinking water service, said those hydrants were put out of service in November 2005 and had tags on them indicating that they weren’t functioning.
She said the city would have informed the fire department at the time.
She said that is the only location in Ottawa where fire hydrants are out of service.
-tim.wieclawski@metronews.ca
