73). Moreover, this smoke may be full of various toxic wastes including polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons, benzene, and various other chemical pollutants. The potential threat to downwind areas posed by such toxins can be significant. In addition to smoke, burning tires may also decompose to carbon black, gas, and oil. In fact, most tire fires ooze large quantities of oil. This pollutant may cause considerable environmental damage. Oil from tire fires has been known to contaminate soils, surface waters, and ground water.
In recent years, large tire fires have occurred both in the United States and in Canada. Not only do these conflagrations cause environmental damage, they also generate large and unnecessary taxpayer expenses. For example, in early 1990, Canada's Hagersville fire involved a total of 14 million used tires (11:32). That inferno took 200 fire fighters a total of 17 days to extinguish. Furthermore, even though only essential site cleanup and limited environmental testing was performed, the fire wound up costing taxpayers approximately one million dollars (3:1217).
Yet another major tire fire occurred in Winchester, Virginia in 1983. That fire only involved 7 million tires. Regardless though, it burned for eight months and was visible from as far as 200 miles away. Burning tires are difficult to extinguish. The application of water tends to increase a fire's environmental damage. Any oil produced may travel in the runoff. For the most part, tire fires are fought with sand and chemicals (10:74). The cleanup operations which followed the Winchester fire were expensive. In fact, the involvement of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) became necessary. Under the Superfund program, the EPA spent upwards of $1.2 million to contain and remove the fire's oily residues (16:37).
Finally, yet another health hazard caused by used tire accumulations involves improper storage. Disc...