PHOENIX — Firefighters have extinguished a second-alarm fire involving several vehicles west of downtown Phoenix after it sent a huge plume of dark smoke into the air.
Aerial video from Air15 showed several vehicles and debris on fire at an apparent junkyard near 27th Avenue and Buckeye Road in Phoenix. Video also showed a couple of large ladder trucks with firefighters shooting water onto the flames.
The Phoenix Fire Department says an employee working at the junkyard first spotted the flames and called 911.
The fire quickly escalated to a second-alarm fire, which allows more fire trucks, firefighters, and resources to respond to the fire.
Carlos Diaz watched the flames build while working at his brother's body shop across the street.
"We were afraid that they were going to come this way and start burning everything," says Carlos Diaz from Arizona Angels Body Shop.
He took to Facebook Live to warn others not to come near 27th Avenue and Buckeye.
"You could see the flames all the way to the sky; that was scary. I've never seen a fire that close," says Diaz.
Dozens of crews worked together to get to the core of the fire, which was underneath a big stack of cars.
"We were able to knock down the body of the fire much quicker on something like this, compared to pulled apart scrap metal," says Evan Gammage with the Phoenix Fire Department.
That's what crews faced at a recycling plant fire back in June, which was close to the same area and triggered the largest response in Phoenix Fire Department history.
Although Tuesday's fire was not nearly as large, we're told the approach to fighting it is the same.
"It's a much slower process. When we're en route to fires like this, we're looking for our water supply, our plugs... trying to get as close as possible with our water," says Gammage.
They use hundreds of gallons of water per minute to put out the fire and lingering hot spots.
No injuries have been reported, according to the Phoenix Fire Department.
Investigators are now trying to determine what sparked the flames.
