Memphis, Tenn. — The Memphis Fire Department battled a fire for hours at a metal recycling facility in North Memphis Sunday.
The fire started before noon in the yard of Omni-Source, at the intersection of Weakley Avenue and N. 7th Street near Mud Island.
Large piles of scrap metal, along with other combustibles, caught on fire.
Firefighters were been able to isolate the flames to one part of the yard, but that one part caused heavy and tall black smoke to fill the air.
The flames could be seen from the highway.
“I could see it all the way down Thomas near Millington,” driver Shakeria Buford said.
People were stopping y to get a close-up of what was going on
“I spotted it when I was on the E-way coming to my mom’s house, and I was like ‘Wow, something is really burning,” driver Kimberly Bentley said.
The plant is a secondary metal scrap collecting and process facility, which also sits right next to a residential area.
“It doesn’t make any sense. That’s dangerous,” a neighbor said.
Living just yards, and even inhaling the scent from he doorstep, this woman who lives nearby says this is not the first time a fire like this has happened there.
“You’re sleep, and all of a sudden you hear something go ‘Boom!’ It scares you, because you don’t know what’s going on,” a neighbor said.
That’s why some residents who live close to the plant didn’t think much of it.
They thought it was just a usual burning fire at the plant, until they noticed the fire trucks.
“I’ve seen it before, and I just figured it was something they had going on in the junk yard that was probably destroying some stuff,” neighbor James Washington said.
There is no word on what sparked the flames.
WREG will have the full story and reaction from drivers at 10 p.m.
