A massive fire that burned throughout the night Tuesday and into Wednesday has been ruled accidental.
CTV News is told hot shards of metal from a shredding process landed near other car parts and caught fire at General Scrap in Springfield the afternoon of June 12.
The blaze raged for 17 hours with a massive pile of scrap, including about 1,000 cars, on fire.
About 60 firefighters from a number of departments were involved in a ground attack on the blaze, while a helicopter was also called in to help.
"Hundreds thousand of hours of labour have gone into putting this fire out. Not to mention the hundred of thousand of gallons of water that have been used," said Jim McCarthy, reeve of the RM of Springfield.
“We’re surrounded by scrap dealers here, and they tend to go up in flames every once in a while,” said Scott Wasylyk from Grainmaster Manufacturing.
Another blaze was reported at scrap yard in 2007.
To protect his business, Wasylyk keeps a field between his property and the scrap yards.
"We call it our fire zone. Fire gets too close there are some weeds that will burn and hopefully not our buildings,” said Wasylyk.
The RM of Springfield recently hired a fire-prevention officer to visit local business throughout the summer.
“That person will be doing inspections of different sites to make sure fire safety is not being compromised,” said McCarthy.
CTV News contacted General Scrap on Wednesday, but the company did not want to comment.
The Springfield fire chief said there were not environmental concerns from the fire.
He said air quality control tests were done by environmental teams. The fire chief also said the wind worked in their favour, with smoke going straight up into the air before dissipating.
