Firefighters battle scrapyard fire in north Charlotte

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Charlotte firefighters battled a huge scrapyard fire in north Charlotte that had clouds of black smoke billowing into the air.

[ IMAGES: Scrap yard fire off North Tryon Street and Atando Avenue ]

Firefighters were called to a scrapyard off of North Tryon Street and Atando Avenue. They were forced to shut down North Tryon Street while they got the fire under control.

Many people around north and uptown Charlotte noticed huge, black clouds of smoke and messaged Channel 9 about what they were seeing. The large clouds of smoke could also be seen by WSOC-TV’s Charlotte tower camera at its studios on North Tryon Street.

Cayla Rhem thought something that had fallen from one of the cranes in the scrapyard, but when she saw the flames and the smoke, she and others realized it was something much worse.

“We were in there, my dad was doing his little scraps and like out of nowhere we heard a big explosion,” Rhem said. “That's when everybody like, ‘Oh, my gosh there's a fire, we need fire extinguishers.’”

Moments later, as Chopper 9 turned a slow pirouette around the scrapyard, we could see firefighters perched high on ladders spraying down what was left of the burning debris that was still smoldering in the yard that had been scorched black by the flames.

Daniel Strother told us the explosion was strong enough that he could feel the vibrations from where he was standing.

Firefighters still haven't determined what started the fire, but no one was hurt.

“We looked back and we saw flames in the air and we all the fire trucks came out here and stuff,” Strother said.

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