A major fire tore through a tire shop in Hawthorne, New Jersey, on Monday morning, sending flames and heavy smoke pouring from the building and drawing dozens of firefighters to the scene. According to the report, the blaze broke out at the Hawthorne Tire Shop on Gothel Road, in Passaic County, and it quickly grew into a dangerous, hard-fought fire before crews were finally able to bring it under control.
As reported, the fire was called in just after 7:20 in the morning, and it took dozens of firefighters to bring the blaze under control. The scene stayed active for hours afterward, with several roads in the area closed off while crews worked, and the fire companies only began packing up their hoses once the flames had finally been knocked down and the fire was out.
Six firefighters were taken to the hospital during the operation, according to the report, most of them for smoke inhalation and a few simply out of an abundance of caution because of the many chemicals that were in the air. Officials said there were no serious injuries, and the firefighters who had been taken in were later released and reported to be fine after the blaze.
The building was not only a business, because there were also apartments on its second floor. As reported, everybody who lived there made it out just fine before the fire got really bad, so the blaze that ended up destroying the property did not leave the residents hurt, even as the flames worked their way up through the structure while it was still occupied.
The fire chief described this as a very hard fire to attack because of the tires, the chemicals inside and the overall industrial nature of the business. According to the report, there was fuel oil kept on site from doing oil changes, and as those containers began to burn the hazmat load grew heavy, which helped to accelerate the fire. Several cars inside the building also caught fire, adding to the danger for the crews.
The chief said the fire load was pretty heavy, with crews running into heavy fire conditions that extended from the first floor down to the basement level, up into the first and second floor apartments and eventually through the roof. As reported, it was essentially a total loss on arrival, and temperatures in most of the parts they were dealing with topped 1,700 degrees, forcing crews to pull back out of the building until they could knock the fire down.
The crews did not fight the blaze on their own, as help came in from several surrounding mutual aid companies, according to the report. The town's public safety director said he had been at home listening to the calls as they were coming in, and then headed out to the scene himself to help coordinate the response and the communications while the firefighters worked.
With the flames finally out, attention turned to what had sparked such an intense fire in the first place. As reported, what started the blaze remains under investigation, while the roads that had been closed during the height of the emergency were reopened as the fire companies cleared the scene and the last of the hot spots were doused.