Josh Meltzer/The Roanoke Times

Joyce Smith covers her mouth and nose as smoke from a forest and tire fire blows toward her home on Starlight Lane. Flames came within 50 feet of her house.

Tuesday, March 26, 2002
Officials wonder how to put out millions of burning tires
Brush fire contained; tires may go for weeks

"People are just going to have to get used to breathing smoke for a while," said a state forestry official said.

By KIMBERLY O'BRIEN
THE ROANOKE TIMES

   The brush fire that ignited the state's largest illegal tire dump was contained Monday at more than 1,000 acres, leaving Roanoke County, state and federal officials to figure out how to deal with the burning tires.

    There's still no plan for putting out millions of tires burning on W.J. Keeling's land off Starlight Lane in Southwest Roanoke County, but officials said Monday that they are working toward one. Monday, representatives from a mixture of environmental agencies toured the site.

    "It is and will be a long-term project," Roanoke County Fire and Rescue Chief Richard Burch said. "We'll be here for awhile."

    One discovery made Monday: he tires aren't just burning on the surface of Keeling's more than 100 acres of land. The tires are also smoldering underground. The estimate is 3 million to 4 million tires, but Brett Burdick with the Virginia Department of Emergency Management said there could be even more.

    "We've got small piles. We've got big piles. We've got deep piles. We've got shallow piles," he said.

    Although the brush fire is contained, it's not controlled, meaning that small fires are still burning within the fire line set by fire crews. Until Monday afternoon, crews had been setting backfires from the fire line to use up fuel in the fire's path.

SETH M. GITNER / The Roanoke Times The fire at its height at night.

    About 4 p.m. Monday, there was a fire line around 1,064 acres -- 70 percent of which was blackened, said Chris Thomsen , regional forester with the state Department of Forestry.

    Tires can't be put out like brush. Putting water on them would cause an oily run-off, which could pollute water sources. So officials are examining other options: They could let the tires burn themselves out. They could tear the fire apart and extinguish it in parts. Or they could smother the fire.

    "All options are on the table," said Burdick, director of the DEM's technological hazards division.

    After years of trying to get Keeling to clean up the dump, Roanoke County officials decided last fall to start working with the DEQ and a private engineering firm to get the tires off the land. The firm had planned to visit the site this week, with hopes to start moving tires this summer, said Rick Weeks, regional director of the state Department of Environmental Quality's regional office in Roanoke.

    The fire changed all that. Weeks said the multimillion-dollar project will be scrapped for the new one being worked out.

    County, state and federal agencies "all seem to be focused on resolving this issue once and for all," Roanoke County Administrator Elmer Hodge said.

    Fire officials think the tire fire ignited Saturday afternoon after a brush fire started along a gravel road off Starlight Lane, about 50 feet from the railroad tracks. Officials have not said what caused the fire, but sparks from a passing train haven't been ruled out, said Roanoke County Fire Marshal Don Gillispie.

    Once the brush along the road ignited, the fire jumped the tracks and winds took the flames up the hill to the tire dump, Gillispie said.

    Monday morning, Keeling's house stood on what appeared to be an island of land surrounded by smoking tires. The smell of burning rubber hung heavily in the air, wafting from smoking crevices. Several warehouses full of tires already had burned.

    Keeling's 40-year-old collection of tires is the largest of the 340 illegal tire dumps on the DEQ's cleanup list, making up about half of the 7 million to 8 million discarded tires in the state.

    That collection, which Keeling once envisioned as a tire recapping plant and a recycling factory, is now going to burn for a while.

    The tires will likely burn for weeks. But even though the tires continue to burn, environmental experts say the air quality is improving,

    Air quality monitors scattered in neighborhoods near the fire showed none of the hazardous materials usually associated with tire fires, Weeks said. What is in the air is particulates - smoke and ash associated with wood fires.

    "We may have had a lucky break," he said.

    But for some residents who live close to the fire, the smoke has been overwhelming.

    Members of the Hale family, who live in several houses along Starlight Lane across from the entrance to Keeling's property, left their homes Saturday and have intermittently returned. Some were at their houses Monday, but said they weren't going to stay.

    "We're dealing with it, but we're scared," said Gloria Hale, wearing a blue face mask as she stood watching the brush fire flare up Monday afternoon. "The houses are filling up with smoke, and it's making us sick."

    The Roanoke County and Roanoke Health Departments issued a health advisory Monday , warning those with heart and lung diseases and allergies, children and the elderly to be careful.

    "People are just going to have to get used to breathing smoke for a while," Thomsen said.

    Monday afternoon, the thick plume of smoke that had risen almost constantly above Buck Mountain since Saturday left a brownish haze over the Roanoke Valley. Rain is in the forecast, which would be good for the brush fire, but bad for the tire fire.

    So crews have erected dams in Back Creek and put up other containment devices to collect any runoff.

    "We're not out of the woods yet," Burch, the fire chief said, but "we are making progress."

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