EAST HANOVER TWP, Pa- A salvage yard in Grantville, Lebanon County is destroyed after a car’s running board caught fire and spread to the building.
The fire at Weaver’s Wrecking Yard along Homestead Road started around 11:00 a.m. Friday. Fire officials say its owner, Rodney Weaver, was dismantling a car outside the building when the vehicle’s running board fell onto a gas tank and burned a hole, igniting flames. It quickly spread to nearby tires and oil barrels. The building went up in flames in a seconds, according to Ono Fire Company Assistant Chief Brent Hostetter.
“Once it got inside, it didn’t take long to spread through the building,” Hostetter said.
No one was inside the building at the time and no workers or fire responders were injured.
Hostetter estimated at least 18 crews from multiple counties helped fight the fire. The first crews arrived from Fort Indiantown Gap Fire Company at 11:30 a.m. Hostetter estimated the building took 45 minutes to collapse.
“When the crews got here, we tried to get it out because it was only on the north end of the building,” Hostetter said. “But it spread too fast. We got everyone out and we attacked it from the outside.”
The first crews to arrive had issues getting the hydrants to work. The dry hydrants aren’t often used, Hostetter said. Tankers lined Homestead Road like a cavalry, each taking its turn to supply water to fight the fire.
Black smoke from the building, which is located less than two miles from the Hershey/Grantville exit along Interstate 81, could be seen from the highway.
The fire was mostly extinguished by 12:30, and most crews had left the scene by 2:30 p.m.
Hostetter said this was the third fire in the last ten years at Weaver’s Wrecking Yard, but the first to engulf the building. Rodney Weaver and his family declined comment.
