TOLEDO, Ohio — There is finally relief for first responders in Delta. Metal X scrapyard was on fire for more than 24 hours before crews finally put the fire completely out late Tuesday night.
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Metal X crews were still working in the scrapyard on Wednesday to cool the metal. In the end, this fire caused very little permanent damage but plans are in place to see what went wrong and how to prevent similar incidents from happening again. In total, 53-area fire departments helped put the fire out.
“We worked with, I think, I figured out 53 different fire departments, 188 different firefighters plus all the private agencies. Everybody worked great together, it was a huge success in my opinion. It’s been a busy few days,” Delta Fire Chief Scott Smith said.
Metal X Workers continue pulling the piles of metal apart, spreading them out and putting water on them.
Delta fire crews managed to save a large, million-dollar Metal X crane, which they considered a win.
“They lost a lot of scrap but we saved their big crane which costs I don’t know how many millions of dollars, but it’s still functioning,” Smith said.
This fire became a learning process for all crews in delta. Delta fire crews plan to conduct additional training with Metal X crews to prevent this from happening again
“We will do an after-action review with them, and kind of figure out what happened and what we can fix if it would ever happen again. We need to get all of our other departments over there and train how to work around their crews and how to work with their crews, how to work with the equipment they have on-site,” Smith said.
Despite the fire being a challenge, many area officials are pleased with the way the situation ended.
Superintendent of Pike, Delta, York schools Dr. Ted Haselman said first responders were a huge help to him when it came to making sure it was okay to keep students in school during the fire.
“First responders did a great job, really landed on the decision that was made. Had they given a different decision, a different response, we would have made a different decision,” Haselman said.
Water testing and air quality samples will be going on for the rest of the week. So far no problems with either test.
The cause of the fire is still under investigation.
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