Tire Smoke Looms

I remember walking onto the site where this massive stinking blaze took place: a very big spread of open field, grown up in tall weeds, a lot of them tall enough to block visibility, sometimes too dense to walk through, forcing you to walk in a very curving path. That field was littered everywhere with rusting appliances, rotting furniture, tires, vehicles, straggling cables and wires—virtually a field of blades and snares. 

Interesting to think of people hiking three football field lengths, with broken visibility, through that weedy, hazardous dumping ground, that outlaw territory, for the charm and excitement of following a fire hose.

I wonder if that fire hose really got loose by accident and whether firemen and onlookers both got hit by the spray, or just the onlookers.

“TIRE INFERNOS” DARKEN CANARSIE SKY

March 12, 1987—Twice last week Canarsiens saw a black funnel cloud looming at their eastern boundary.

It was tire smoke, forming a sooty thunderhead that was visible for miles but originating both times from a rubbish-cluttered vacant field near the east end of Flatlands Avenue, about a mile northeast of Starrett City.

Two fire officials said police had arrested an arson suspect during the tire blaze Thursday afternoon—the second at that location in two days—but a spokesman for the 75th Police Precinct, which has jurisdiction in the area, was unable to confirm the report.

Both fires involved brush, rubbish and large accumulations of discarded tires, according to fire officials. Firemen fought the blaze late Wednesday afternoon for about 40 minutes, and for about an hour and a half when it occurred at about the same time Thursday, officials said.

The vacant field is located at the northeast corner of Flatlands Avenue and Crescent Street.

A fireman received a minor contusion during Thursday’s fire, according to Fire Chief James Cately of the 51st Battalion. He said his unit—a Queens firefighting battalion—had responded to the Thursday fire because the 39th Battalion, the regular battalion for that section of Brooklyn, was on another fire call.

The 39th Battalion fought the blaze on Wednesday with no injuries, according to Fire Chief Alfonso Alternburger.

Chief Alternburger said it was possible, but not likely, that the second fire was caused by the first. “One thing with tires, it could look like it’s totally dead and it’ll burst into flame afterwards,” he said. However, he thinks his battalion fought the fire “far down” enough to extinguish it completely.

The 39th Battalion used a “stang”—a high-pressure, truck-mounted hose—to hit the fire with large volumes of water, a method that is especially useful in fighting a tire blaze, according to Chief Alternburger. “It’s a hot fire because of the rubber,” he said. “ And the water doesn’t always get down to the fire. It can take awhile to cool the rubber down—that’s the essence of the thing.”

A stang delivers more water and force than can a handheld hose; also, it allows firemen to attack a blaze without getting physically close to it, according to Chief Altenburger.

He said blazes involving discarded tires are probably in most cases deliberate, although a heap of tires could be ignited by brush or rubbish bursting into flame by spontaneous combustion.

Chief Cately of the 51st Battalion said he been told police arrested an arson suspect Thursday afternoon even before firefighters arrived. “They had the place staked out,” he said. A spokesman for the 75th Precinct said he could find no record of the arrest, but would not rule out the possibility that it had taken place.

Chief Cately said “this tire problem (discarding of old tires) is going on all along Shore Parkway.” He estimated there were 3,000 to 4,000 tires at last week’s fire scene. Although a great number of tires burned up, large heaps of them remain. The large quantities being dumped indicate that businesses, not individuals, are responsible, Chief Cately said.

He warned that even though people ignite tire piles “for the hell of it,” it creates “a hard working job for us (the firefighters), and somebody may get hurt.”

Even though the two fires last week were in the middle of a rough, weedy field, they attracted spectators—children on bicycles and adults who parked their cars and hiked in, following the 900 feet of meandering fire hose. At one point a fire hose either uncoupled or got loose, spraying onlooking youngsters as well as firemen.

Both fire chiefs said the spectators had presented no problem at the Wednesday and Thursday fires. However, they said, onlookers can sometimes endanger themselves and hinder firefighting.

“If it’s a problem, we call the police,” said Chief Cately.

Chief Alternburger said he did not know who owns the field where the tire blazes took place.

This article first appeared in The Canarsie Courier, a Brooklyn newspaper, around 1987.