May 1, 2019 – Dark smoke filled the air in southeast Calgary last Wednesday as 13 firetruck crews put out a blaze at metal recycling scrap yard, Calgary Metal Recycling.
This would be the fourth major fire at this plant in the span of seven years. In 2012 the fire burned for two weeks and caused the surrounding area to evacuate the premises because of the poor air quality. The plant pled guilty to Alberta Fire Code offences and had to pay about $17,000 in fines.
There was no damage to the facility or injuries from the recent fire.
Coun. Gian-Carlo Carra says Calgary Metal Recycling uses a new vehicle recycling process, that grinds down cars to a very fine grain, which as a result recycles more.
The city is still investigating how the fire started.
“What we know about today’s fire is that we’re on top of it, we are studying whether they messed up and made the piles too high against the regulations, or whether we need to change the regulations and have smaller and more spread-out piles,” the Ward 9 councillor told CBC News.
“But the fact is that we have to grind up our cars and we have to recycle them and this is the most effective way to do it,” he said.
