Great Barrington — A fire at Formel Auto Salvage on Friday, Oct. 21, is under investigation by the town’s Fire Marshal’s office according to Fire Department Chief Charles Burger.
However, in an email to The Berkshire Edge, Chief Burger wrote that the fire is not considered to be suspicious.
Chief Burger wrote that the Fire Department responded to the Formel Auto Salvage property on 21 Van Deusenville Rd. at around 4:30 p.m.
“I immediately saw a large black smoke column in the sky from several miles away and requested our first alarm be struck bringing in mutual aid,” Chief Burger wrote in his email. “On arrival, I found a pile of about 20 scrap vehicles burning and several large fuel tanks. While the fire was burning very hot we were easily able to keep it from spreading throughout the site.”
Burger wrote that no buildings on the property were damaged by the fire.
“I requested our tanker task force for water supply so we could avoid further roiling Housatonic Water by using the hydrants,” Chief Burger wrote. “We had the fire knocked down in under an hour but were on site until 8:30 p.m. thoroughly cooling all hot spots and containing water runoff. The site has been extensively cleaned up over the past few years and the mountain of scrap [has been] mostly removed. That made it much easier for us to contain the fire.”
Chief Burger wrote that representatives from the state’s Department of Environmental Protection were requested by the Fire Department to assess air quality and environmental hazards.
“They verified there were no air quality issues and all water runoff had been contained to the site,” Chief Burger wrote.
Update: In another email to The Berkshire Edge, Chief Burger wrote that property damage was limited because “it was was primarily junk cars that burned. They were the cars brought in for the day that still needed to be processed (fluids, batteries, tires, etc. prior to being scrapped). We called in a tanker task force for water so there were a lot of departments which assisted – Richmond, Lee, Stockbridge, Monterey, New Marlborough, Sheffield, and Egremont.”
