Big two-alarm fire at auto salvage yard in Kent challenges fire crews

A big fire at an auto wrecking yard near Kent took hours to put out Sunday.

The fire broke out around 1:15 a.m. Sunday, at Binford Metals in Kent, an auto salvage business on 78th Ave. S., just east of SR 167.

The first calls to 911 came in reporting a vehicle fire.

But fire crews soon learned it was more than just one vehicle.

“While en route, it was obvious that it was more than that, just by looking at the thermal column,” said Puget Sound Fire Spokesperson Pat Pawlak.  “When firefighters arrived they found several vehicles on fire and these vehicles had already been smashed down and stacked up maybe eight to ten feet high.”

A two-alarm fire burned for hours Sunday morning at an auto salvaging yard near Kent. (Photo: Puget Sound Fire)

All those tall stacks of crushed cars, trucks and SUVs gave the fire plenty of nooks and crannies in which to spread, making it a tough fire to battle.

Crews quickly upgraded it to a two-alarm fire and called out for help from neighboring fire departments, including Valley Regional Fire Authority, South King Fire & Rescue, King County Medic One, Zone Three Fire Cadets.

The Port of Seattle also dispatched a crash vehicle crew to deploy fire-extinguishing foam onto the flames.

Puget Sound Fire officials posted video of crews battling the stubborn fire on X.

“When you start looking at these stacks of cars, it’s row after row after row,” Pawlak said.  “And you can’t get back in between the rows either.  Plus it’s very dangerous, given the fact that it’s 1:00 in the morning.  It’s also dark outside, so you’re at a disadvantage.  Obviously, our number one concern is the safety of our firefighters and safety of any of the workers that are there.”

Firefighters contacted the owners of the business and they soon arrived at the fire scene.

It’s unclear whether the crews were concerned about flammable or toxic liquids, such as gasoline, oil, or brake or power steering fluid the vehicles had once contained.

“It’s really hard to tell, because they typically drain these vehicles of all the fluids before they crush them,” Pawlak said.

The fire also spread to a nearby outbuilding.  The flames destroyed a metal-constructed shop.  Damage from the fire caused its roof to collapse.

Pawlak says the structure was a complete loss and will have to be demolished.

At around 4:30 or 5:00 a.m., after several hours had passed trying to put out the flames, crews developed a new strategy.

The asked the business to use an excavator to pull apart burning vehicles so they could get at the still smoldering and burning vehicles and in the unreachable areas where the flames had spread.

Someone from the salvage company operated the heavy machinery.

“It was picking up one car at a time.  They would hold it and if there were any hot spots we would extinguish it,” Pawlak said.  “So really it wasn’t where they were picking cars out of a pile that was on fire.  It was primarily hitting the hot spots.”

Luckily, no one was injured.

One big question is, on such a wet, rainy night, how did the piles of crushed cars ignite?

That’s what investigators will try to determine in the coming days.

Since the business is located in unincorporated King County, the sheriff’s office will do the probe into the cause.

“Until they get a chance to complete their investigation it would be hard to say what the cause was,” Pawlak said.