BY STEPHEN THOMPSON
The Tampa Tribune

SEMINOLE - Firefighters this morning continue to check for hot spots at a massive junkyard where two blazes broke out in an eight-hour period, fire officials said.

The first fire at Starkey Road Auto Parts, 11900 Starkey Road, was detected at 9:15 p.m. Sunday, said Alison Shanabrook, spokeswoman for Seminole Fire Rescue. A stack of fire cars had caught fire, and firefighters had to disassemble the stack to extinguish the blaze.

Unfortunately, one of the cars that had been pulled from the stack had not been fully extinguished, and it caused an additional 15 cars to catch fire this morning at 5:15 a.m., Shanabrook said. The second blaze was then put out, and now a front-end loader is being used to pull cars apart so firefighters can put out additional hot spots, if there are any, Shanabrook said.

No one was injured in either fire, she said.

A dollar estimate of the damage was not available.

The cause of the first fire remains under investigation, she said.

The two elementary schools across the street from the junkyard – Walsingham and Southern Oak elementary schools – are not believed to have been affected by firefighters’ efforts, Shanabrook said.

However, authorities are concerned about the run-off caused by the mixture of the water and foam used by the firefighters, combined with the oil and gasoline from the cars, she said. County environmental workers are on their way to the junk yard to assess the situation, she said.

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