Tire fire still under investigation: arson ruled out

After taking nearly five hours to contain a tire fire at Arizona Rubber Recycling Center, Maricopa Fire Department is still investigating the cause of the second largest fire at the facility since 2007.

Three engine companies and a ladder truck responded to the facility, 14121 N. Hartman Road, at 7:06 p.m. on Monday night, and the fire was contained by 12:03 a.m.

“When the crews arrived on scene, they found an approximately 10,000 square foot area pile of tires fully engulfed,” said Maricopa Fire spokesman Brad Pitassi.

“Originally it started with three engine companies and a ladder truck and our battalion chief. As soon as they arrived on scene, the battalion chief sized it up as a tire fire, and they were able to let some units go.”

During the fire MFD called in Karey Environmental Services Group, a company that deals with hazardous materials and covered the fire with 2 to 4 feet of dirt to suffocate the flames and prevent a smoke plume from rising.

The department didn’t use water to contain the fire due to the fact that oils from the tires could seep into and contaminate the ground.

“Through our experience in the past several years of working with tire fires, we realize that we don’t put water on these fires,” Pitassi said. “We took a very defensive posture and didn’t go in with water and stabilized the incident and made sure it stayed contained.”

MFD was called to the same facility for a fire in 2007 that consumed nearly a football field in length of tires in the area.

“The cause of (Monday’s) fire is still under investigation,” said Maricopa Division Chief Mark Boys. “We’ve had a series of smaller fires since then (2007). This is probably the second of any size of magnitude that we’ve had.”

In 2010 the department responded to a fire that was in one of the silos adjacent to the property, but it was quickly contained.

MFD will have to wait until the ground is cool enough before unearthing the tires to find the cause. After the last fire, it took about a year and a half to find the cause of the fire, due to the risk of another fire starting as tires were unearthed.

At this time the fire could have been caused by humans or by pieces of trash that were around the site, but investigators will have to wait to find evidence until the tires are cool enough to be pulled out.

The department ruled out natural causes, weather or electricity that may have been in the ground.

“It’s very difficult to start a tire on fire,” Boys said, “depending on the condition of the tire, whether it is a whole tire, a piece of a tire or ground tire or ‘fluff’.” Fluff is the end product of ground-up tires.

After the 2007 fire, the department issued a cease and desist order to the facility that is not surrounded by a perimeter gate. The cause of that fire may have been from trash that had accumulated in the area.

“Our main concern was to secure the property,” Boys said. “We didn’t want the general public to fall into these hot tire pits. They remain hot for years and years and, before they removed that material on the surface, they had to ensure to us that those piles were safe to do so.”

During Monday’s fire, the wind blew the smoke towards the agricultural areas away from Maricopa. The Arizona Department of Environmental Quality said there was no risk of affected air quality.

File photo