BRIGHTON, Ill. — It took a major effort, a lot of water and 12 fire departments to put out a scrap yard fire in Brighton, Illinois Tuesday morning.
The fire at MAW Salvage started from a spark while workers were crushing an old car. That spark turned into a fire in a 50-foot-tall, 100-foot-wide pile of metal and crumpled up cars.
The view from Sky5 showed thick smoke billowing into the sky. The dark smoke cloud could be seen for several miles. There are reports the smoke could be seen as far south as Collinsville, which is about 30 miles away.
There were no fire departments in the area, so fire crews from the area helped drive in water with tanker trucks. When they ran out of water, the trucks had to drive three miles to the village of Fosterburg to refill at hydrants.
It took 250,000 gallons of water to fight the fire. Firefighters worked for four hours to get the flames under control and another hour to put out all of the hot spots.
No one was hurt.
