‘Feeding burning cars to the belt’: EMR employees’ actions worsened Camden scrapyard fire, report says

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Actions by EMR employees stoked last month’s fire at the South Camden metal recycling facility, turning it into a massive four-alarm blaze, according to the Camden Fire Department’s incident report.

When the fire department’s Battalion 1 arrived on the scene, firefighters saw fire coming from a roughly two-story-tall pile of recycled scrap metal at the rear of the property, the officer in charge, Battalion Chief Ezequiel Tirado, wrote in the report.

The fire began to spread quickly because EMR employees were moving burning material to another pile and onto a conveyor belt leading to a building, Tirado wrote.

“Their actions caused the entire pile, … the conveyor belt, along with the 4-story building to be fully engulfed in flames,” he wrote.

A crew member with a different unit, Robert Eckert, echoed this account.

“We made numerous attempts verbally with staff to have the crane stop feeding burning cars to the belt due to the hopper lighting on fire,” Eckert wrote in the report. “Finally the belt was stopped.”

Further complicating firefighters’ response was the fact that they faced difficulty getting a water supply “due to the distance between different water mains,” Tirado wrote in the report.

Other responders described a path blocked by jersey barriers and a need to force entry through a side gate in order to access water.

Eventually, EMR employees worked in coordination with the fire department, Tirado wrote, “utilizing multiple cranes with claws, a front end loader, and dump trucks to move piles of debris to allow for the extinguishment of deep seated fire.”

More than a dozen units, including four engines, three ladders and several fire marshals, responded to the fire, according to the report. The blaze took roughly 12 hours to fully extinguish, according to EMR, and the response took 18 hours of firefighting, Tirado wrote.

“This was a long drawn out operation,” he wrote.

The recent fire was the facility’s sixth since 2016, according to a Camden County spokesperson. The company has a history of environmental and workplace safety violations in South Camden.

WHYY News sent questions to EMR about its employees’ response to the fire and about the company’s training of employees on fire safety, prevention and response, but has not yet received a response.

The company shared a statement with WHYY News last week saying the cause of the fire was a lithium-ion battery wrongly delivered to EMR. The company is calling for more regulation of these batteries.

“We are angered that this happened and deeply regret any inconvenience to our neighbors,” the statement read. “The federal government and New Jersey Legislature must step in to ensure lithium-ion batteries do not pose any further risks to our communities.”

“While EMR takes multiple proactive measures to prevent these batteries from entering our recycling stream, the government must act immediately,” the statement said.

As of last Tuesday, the state fire marshal was still investigating the cause of the fire.

City of Camden pursues investigation to prevent future fires

EMR postponed a community meeting planned for Wednesday evening.

A public notice from the city of Camden announcing the change did not specify why, but said the city had initiated an “after-action” evaluation to analyze the response to the fire — including steps taken by EMR — and identify actions to prevent similar incidents in the future.

The city said it is working with state, county and local partners on the evaluation and promised a public meeting with those impacted by the fire when it is complete. With this investigation still ongoing, spokesperson Vincent Basara said Thursday that the city and its fire department could not comment on the cause of the fire or potential enforcement actions.

“The City of Camden is fully committed to continuing to work in a coordinated and transparent effort with our residents, business owners, community stakeholders, City Council, State Legislators, and alongside our partners at the Heart of Camden and EMR,” the public notice read. “Public safety is our top priority, and everyone is focused on making sure a potential future incident does not occur.”