CFA crews have worked into the night to extinguish a fire which broke out at a Horsham scrap metal yard on Monday afternoon.
District 17 Operations Officer Alfred Mason said crews had a busy few hours working to contain the blaze.
“There was a tower of approximately 500 scrap metal cars involved,” Alfred said.
“Initially there were a lot of explosions in the stack and a lot of flames shooting high up into the air from the exploding cars.
“Crews used a wall of water to cool it down, before applying foam. We then used the site’s excavators to pull the stack apart and extinguish the blaze piece by piece.”
Workers from Manhari Metal Yard had just left for the day when the fire broke out minutes later, around 5pm.
A neighbouring tyre fitting business was also threatened by the flames, forcing staff to hurriedly empty tyres from its warehouse.
An advice message was issued to Horsham residents for the volume of smoke lingering over the area.
Police closed businesses within a one kilometre radius of the fire and traffic was diverted away from the scene.
The fire was declared under control around 10:30pm.
The site owners estimate the damage bill to be more than $300,000.
Fire crews remained on scene overnight to monitor any flare ups and left the scene at 6:30 on Tuesday morning.
Horsham, Ararat, Ballarat, Murtoa, Warracknabeal, Dimboola, Natimuk, Jung, Vectis, Wonwondah, Dooen, Green Lake and Laharum crews all attended the fire.
Fire investigators and the Arson Squad are working to determine the cause of the blaze.
Photos courtesy of Paul Carracher, Wimmera Mail-Times
Author: CFA Media