Late-morning fire causes health advisory

A thick plume of black smoke rose above the city of Maricopa today when several hundred tires caught fire about a mile and half west of 347, just south of the Union Pacific tracks.

Police Department spokesman Stephen Judd said the fire broke out around 11:50 a.m. The Maricopa Fire department responded immediately and by 12:30 p.m. employees from city public works and Union Pacific were on the scene as well, helping push dirt onto the fire to contain it and prevent adjacent vegetation from igniting.

Trains were stopped in both directions for more than hour, raising concerns with Union Pacific freight schedulers about the delivery of holiday-related goods. No injuries were reported, but Judd said the fire department had issued a health advisory due to the thick smoke.

“We have an inversion layer with the weather and clouds today,” Judd said. “So the smoke is not rising straight up and dissipating. Instead it is blowing over the city at a fairly low altitude of 500 to 1,000 feet. People are advised to stay inside and avoid breathing the smoke.”

Early reports attributed the fire first to two juveniles then to a homeless person but police had no definitive information on the cause of the blaze as of 1 p.m.
 

Photos showing firefighters on scene courtesy of Howard Waggner/MFD