A fire at a metal scrapyard in southeast Atlanta on Tuesday morning temporarily shut down a busy intersection and an industrial railway, officials said.
Atlanta fire crews responded to M&M Waste Dumpsters shortly after 10 a.m., Battalion Chief Greg Gray told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution at the scene. A long black plume of smoke rising from the scrapyard was visible for miles.
At the scene, crews found heavy fire in a large rubble pile, Gray said.
“Our biggest concern was exposure issues,” he said. “There was a 10-15-mph wind at the time.”
The nearby intersection of Lakewood Avenue and McDonough Boulevard was shut down, and the railway operated by Norfolk Southern next to the scrapyard was temporarily closed as well. An official from the rail company was able to get to the site quickly and helped determine that the situation was safe to reopen for train traffic, Gray said.
Credit: John Spink
Credit: John Spink
The debris involved in the fire was mostly metal, Gray said, and once investigators determined there was no danger of exposure to harmful fumes, firefighters began to battle the flames.
The crews faced multiple challenges, the first being availability of a water source nearby. The second challenge was getting enough height to wet the flames from above, Gray said.
Fire crews had the situation under control and made progress through the early afternoon, but firefighters expected to be there for hours, according to Gray.
“We got a crane operator in with a grappler. He’s removing debris and we’re wetting it down as we go,” he said. “We hope we can get it wrapped up before nighttime.”
A stretch of McDonough Boulevard that runs alongside the salvage yard was closed for most of the day as a result of the fire.
