CLEVELAND — Cleveland firefighters battled a large blaze at Ferrous Processing and Trading late Tuesday afternoon.
The blaze broke out near the intersection of East 88th Street and Aetna Road in the Union-Miles Park neighborhood. Residents were urged to steer clear. A plume of smoke could be seen from I-77 as it filled city streets, with the sun barely visible in a semi-apocalyptic scene.
"You just see smoke coming, you hear over the radio, 'Hey, we got a fire,'" employee Blaize Watts, who captured the fire on video, told 3News. "We grab our hoses, whatnot, and just start spraying it down."
Red flames and heavy black smoke could be seen coming from the pile of materials.
"The fire department [started] spraying it down, [but] it's just still going," Watts said. "I don't see an end to it until it gets to the ground."
A representative from Ferrous sent WKYC an e-mail stating that the company is a scrap processing facility and also a recycling center. The property has 54 acres and is owned by Cleveland Cliffs, and with so many combustible materials inside, the smoke is expected to stick around for a while.
Residents who lived nearby stopped to see what was burning.
"I thought it was the high school burning when I was first getting closer," one man admitted. The facility is about a mile east of Cleveland Central Catholic High School.
The Cleveland Division of Fire had at least seven units on the scene putting out hot spots. While no one was hurt, lots of smoke remained.
Watts could only speculate what caused this inferno. He's grateful the crew made it out safely.
"I know there's tires, wires, a whole bunch of car parts in there," he said. "It could just be the oil, gas, wires all burning together."