EPA Investigates Effects of Fire at Tire-Recycling Business

By John Futty, The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio

Apr. 7–For the second time in two years, Ohio EPA officials are investigating the environmental effects of a fire at a South Side tire-recycling business.

Columbus firefighters spent more than an hour yesterday morning containing a fire that destroyed a tire-shredding building at Liberty Tire Services of Ohio, 3041 Jackson Pike. Thick, black smoke was visible for miles.

Although smoke from tire fires can contain harmful soot and chemicals, EPA officials were more concerned about oily, ash-laden water runoff reaching nearby Marsh Run, said Mike Dalton, an emergency response coordinator. Marsh Run leads to Big Run, a tributary of the Scioto River.

In June 2004, efforts to extinguish a large tire fire outside the plant resulted in an expensive cleanup of floating ash and oil where Big Run enters the Scioto, Dalton said.

“This time, Big Run was not impacted as badly,” he said.

“The water was discolored, but last time it was so dark you couldn’t see the bottom of the creek. They cut off most of the flow this time through the storm sewers.”

He said samples from Marsh Run and Big Run will be analyzed for contaminants, but no cleanup was necessary.

As many as a dozen employees were inside the tire-shredding building around 9:30 a.m. yesterday when they heard an explosion and saw fire erupt in the ceiling, said Fire Battalion Chief Doug Smith.

No one was injured, and a damage estimate was not immediately available, he said. The fire was ruled accidental and appeared to be electrical.

Dalton estimated a few hundred tires burned in the plant fire, versus a few thousand that burned in the 2004 fire.

jfutty@dispatch.com

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