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Monday, March 25, 2002
Firefighters plan to allow the tires to burn themselves out to reduce the amounts of polluted water runoff and hazardous smoke.
By LAURENCE HAMMACK
Firefighters concentrated their efforts on a brush fire that consumed about 150 acres on Buck Mountain. By late afternoon, the fire was contained but continued to burn within a 500-acre area bordered by firelines.
"Not years, but more than days," Roanoke County Fire and Rescue Chief Richard Burch said when asked how long the tire fire might burn - and how long its billowing smoke might cloud the valley. County officials, who have known for years that the tire dump posed a major fire hazard, said they had a plan in place long before 3 p.m. Saturday, when what started as a brush fire became the tire fire they all had feared. The plan, at least for now, is to let the tires burn. "The hotter it burns, the faster it consumes the tires, and the less smoke and runoff we will have," Burch said. Sunday afternoon, at the center of the crisis, tire dump owner W.J. Keeling sat in a chair outside his steel-reinforced home on the burned-out property. Small fires flared up not far from where he sat, although his view of the damage was obscured by swirling clouds of smoke. "It came up from the railroad tracks," he said of the fire. "I didn't know it till it had got up on the mountain.
"I lost three buildings out yonder," he said, pointing to where warehouses full of tires had burned to the ground. Keeling, who has maintained a tense relationship with Roanoke County officials who have tried over the years to get him to clean up the dump, was asked to leave the area as he spoke. Driving past reporters on his way out, Keeling held up a contract that he said shows the county is to blame. But questions of accountability were put on hold Sunday as authorities grappled with more immediate concerns. Tire fires are all but impossible to put out, and dumping water on them only increases the chances of creating a toxic runoff that could endanger nearby streams. While rain might be a good thing for the brush fire, it could have the opposite effect on the burning tires. "We're in a Catch-22 situation here," said Brett Burdick, director of the state Department of Emergency Management's technological hazards division. There were no reports of petroleum-based runoff Sunday. But as a precaution, state officials contracted with a private firm to build an underflow dam on Back Creek that would keep oil and other substances from floating downstream. Smoke was another concern, although air samples tested in Richmond have shown no cause for alarm so far, according to Dr. Molly O'Dell, public health director for the Roanoke and Alleghany regions. The only potential health risk Sunday was to people with heart or respiratory problems, O'Dell said. Those people were advised to stay inside or to move away from the immediate area of the fire if possible. "We're breathing a good sigh of relief that both of these samples have come back normal," O'Dell said of tests of the area's air quality Saturday and Sunday. Officials plan to conduct additional tests, including ones that would measure the amount of particulate in the smoky air. But there have been no long-term health problems associated with smoke from fires similar to this one, O'Dell said. Because of a change in wind patterns and temperatures, the dense black smoke that clouded Southwest Roanoke County on Saturday was replaced Sunday by a whiter, thinner smoke that came mostly from the brush fire. No homes were in immediate danger, and Burch said there were no plans for mandatory evacuations that were made possible by Warner's declaration of a state of emergency. The declaration, which came at the request of Roanoke County officials, also allows more state and federal resources to be employed, including possible use of the National Guard. Just one family spent the night Saturday at a shelter set up at Penn Forest Elementary School after a voluntary evacuation of the Kings Chase and Branderwood neighborhoods was announced, Red Cross officials said. The shelter was moved Sunday to the Brambleton Center on Brambleton Avenue near Cave Spring Corner. However, no one was there as of 11 p.m. Sunday afternoon, John Capps was doing yard work outside his Kings Chase home. The day before, he said, a police officer advised him to pack up his family heirlooms and prized possessions in case the fire spread. "That was a little unsettling," said Capps, who put his family photographs and silverware in the car before driving to a pre-arranged dinner date. Despite the smoke-filled air, Capps and his family decided to stay put. The only change in their normal routine, he said, was that his daughter, who suffers from asthma, got to go on a shopping expedition to Lynchburg on Sunday with her mother. A cause of the fire, which officials suspect started near the railroad tracks that run past the tire dump, had not been determined Sunday. Several possibilities, including sparks from a passing train and arson, are being investigated, said Chris Thomsen, regional resource forester for the Department of Forestry. Thomsen said whoever is responsible could be ordered to pay for associated costs, which are expected to go into the tens of thousands of dollars. There were no reports Sunday of injuries. About 50 area firefighters were joined by officials from more than a half-dozen state and federal agencies. For years, county officials have been trying to get Keeling's tire dumped cleaned up. Over the past 30 years, several smaller fires have broken out at the dump, which contains between 3 million and 4 million discarded tires, according to the state Department of Environmental Quality. Keeling was convicted of operating an illegal tire dump at the site more than a decade ago. The county recently received a $1.4 million state grant to clean up the area, and a consultant had recently been hired to begin the planning. Officials were frustrated that the fire broke out just as a solution was in sight to a stalemate that Keeling, at least, seems to consider the county's fault. "We can talk about pointing fingers, and we can all play the blame game," County Attorney Paul Mahoney said.
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