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'Owner of tire dump blames blaze on vandals Page 2 of 3 One area resident said he saw the fire erupt early Saturday morning. Aumnutwe "I was watching TV," said Robert Miller, who lives on State Rt. 103 next to the dump. "Right at 10 minutes to 2, 1 saw a big, red flash. I saw that a Gwwral whole top of a pile of tires was on fire instantly." Aftertidng Dhectoey The tire-dump business has been in contention with environmental and health agencies for several years, mainly for continuing to accumulate millions of old tires without actually recycling them. The EPA and Wyandot County courts had ordered Kirby's to stop accumulating more tires. Records of the Ohio EPA show that the business was started in the 1950s by the late Nobel Kirby. In 1993, the board of health declared it a nuisance and ordered the business to remove tires on a schedule. That was the first of a series of EPA directives and court orders with which the dump "failed to comply," according to the EPA. This year, the firm of Central Ohio Contractors was hired by the EPA to begin systematically shredding and recycling the tires. Mrs. Kirby said the company tried to make the business work. "We worked so hard and so long to make this work, and then people took it away from us," she said. "We made plans to recycle tires and gave information to authorities, and the next thing we knew, we didn't have a job anymore." Stewart Hill, of the Chicago office of the U.S. EPA, said as of midday yesterday, 27,400 tons of sand had been dumped on the burning tires. Trucks brought loads of sand to the site through the day. Clay will be dumped atop the sand to effectively smother the fire. "The fire itself is our greatest concern," Mr. Hill said. He said that so far, no danger is seen in either air or water as a result of the fire. "It's a nuisance," he said "We have no reason to think there is any danger to drinking water." Runoff from fire-fighting water, which picks up oil from the burned tires, has been prevented from seeping into nearby Sycamore Creek. Jeff Ritchey, Wyandot County environmental health director, said there appears to be no health threat in the air. "But the health department advises residents with respiratory problems, elderly, and babies 0 to 6 weeks old in a four-mile radius to keep windows and doors shut," he said. The EPA is happy with progress made in fighting the fire and containing contamination, said on-scene coordinator Mark Durno. "It looks very bad but is not nearly that bad," he said. http://www.toledoblade.com/editorial/news/9h24dump.htm 08/24/1999