At least 12 cars burn in Joliet junkyard fire

JOLIET – Several cars caught fire Thursday at a junkyard on East Washington Street, police and fire officials said.

The fire was contained to the junkyard, Joliet Fire Chief Joseph Formhals said. Joliet police had streets blocked off about a block away from the junkyard as firefighters worked on putting out the fire. The smoke in the sky was visible from miles away. Near the scene some patrons of area establishments looked on. But Formhals said there wasn’t any danger of the fire spreading beyond the scrapyard.

“Throughout the years we’ve had numerous calls out there for the same thing,” Formhals said. “The biggest problem out there is water supply.”

Joliet Deputy Police Chief Ed Gregory said police got a call at 3:20 p.m. for a fire at 1014 E. Washington St. The address is the location of the Joliet U-Pull-It & Scrap. No one was injured, Deputy Fire Chief Ray Randich said. No flames were visible as of 4:15 p.m.

“They were cutting cars, one of the torches ignited a stack of compacted cars and the fire went from stack to stack,” Randich said. “There were probably 12 to 15 cars going all at once when we arrived.”

• Herald-News reporters Brian Stanley and Felix Sarver contributed to this story.