Several hundred junked vehicles exploded into flames in a spectacular out-of-control fire that shrouded about 10 acres of Antelope Valley in the high desert near Los Angeles with thick, black smoke on Thursday.
No one was injured in the three-alarm blaze, authorities said, as firefighters and work crews from the automobile recycling center used heavy equipment to shuttle some of the crushed vehicles around the lot to avoid the fires.
Some reports said that there were as many as 1,500 junked vehicles on the site, described as a car crusher facility. Los Angeles County Fire Department Capt. Sheila Kelliher said early indications are that the fire started due to a malfunctioning hydraulic car crusher.
According to station KTLA, officials with the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department’s Lancaster Station had issued a shelter in place order for a nearby neighborhood, but no residential evacuations had been ordered. The location is about an hour north of Los Angeles off the Sierra Highway, which had been shut down while crews battled the flames.
Nearly 200 firefighters were containing the fire about six hours after it started.
