A massive fire at a North Philadelphia junkyard is now under control after 120 firefighters fought the flames Wednesday afternoon.
The three-alarm fire started shortly before 1 p.m. at a junkyard on the 500 block of West Annsbury Street. Around 120 firefighters responded to the scene.
After cars at the junkyard caught fire, a large billow of black smoke could be seen by residents across the city, including students at Cayuga Elementary School.
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"I was outside at recess just playing," Manny Hopkins, a Cayuga student, told NBC10. "Then everybody started looking up at the sky. I'm like, 'what's happening?'"
Parents of the students arrived at the school to pick up their children as smoke filled the air.
"They said it was across the street from the school but I thought it was like a little farther and stuff but when I came all the smoke was still where the kids' school was at," Eliana Melendez, a parent, told NBC10.
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Firefighters said they had to be careful about a gasoline storage tank that was near the fire as they tried to bring it under control.
One resident was taken to the hospital as a precaution because of the thick smoke in the area.
"In the very beginning of this fire there was a lot of smoke off-gassing to the east of the area and it was a lot of smoke in the area," Philadelphia Fire Assistant Chief Charles Walker said. "You got the residents pretty much that were in harm's way out of the way and luckily we had wind that kind of helped clear up conditions along with us extinguishing the fire."
Firefighters were able to bring the flames under control around 3:30 p.m.
The Philadelphia Department of Public Health issued a warning for residents to avoid the area or stay inside. The Department dispatched inspectors to the area to collect air samples to determine the air quality and any potential threat. They have not detected any specific hazardous substances at this time.
While the Health Department will continue to monitor the area, firefighters said there is no current threat to the public in the surrounding area. They continue to investigate the cause.
