A tire fire was burning at The Tire Depot located near Polson, MT. The facility is located in Lake County, Montana within the reservation boundaries of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes .
Fire fighting activities are wrapping up. Both the Salish and Kootenai Tribes and the Lake County Office of Emergency Management have requested assistance from EPA's Emergency Response Program.
EPA's Response Unit extinguished a tire fire at this same facility in 2001. When the request for support was made to EPA for the current fire, a Lake County employee who had been involved with the 2001 effort indicated to the Phone Duty OSC that the current fire was as extensive and perhaps more extensive than the 2001 fire. As a result, EPA has mobilized a full Response Team including three OSCs as well as both EPA's START and ERRS response contractors.
The fire has been contained. START left the site at 1400.
Data from each piece of equipment will be uploaded to Scribe this evening, then published. Two air monitoring locations were established, with 3 pieces of equipment at each location (dataram, EPAM, and multirae pro).