Residents of Fredericton neighbourhood nervous after fire at AIM scrapyard

Silas Brown · CBC News

· Posted: Mar 14, 2025 3:31 PM EDT | Last Updated: 10 minutes ago

Thursday's occurrence astatine a north-side Fredericton scrapyard has neighbours casting a wary oculus crossed the street.

"We're surrounded by a large wooded area and there's a protected wetlands down us, truthful the incorrect spark could benignant of take the wood and go," said Ryan Feener, who lives straight crossed the thoroughfare from the scrapyard.

"That's a wide interest that you benignant of person to unrecorded with."

The gait is owned by American Iron and Metal, which has faced nationalist scrutiny astatine different sites in the province. The installation connected Saint John's westbound broadside was the root of predominant assemblage complaints implicit explosions and the tract of a monolithic occurrence successful 2023.

That occurrence raged for 2 days and the company licence to run successful New Brunswick was yet revoked, but the institution is seeking a tribunal bid to person it reinstated.

In Moncton, an AIM tract connected Toombs Street was the absorption of complaints from country residents astir large noises, vibrations, and smells. A dependable barrier made of shipping containers was installed to woody with the noise.

Gladys Brennan lives 4 homes away from the gates of the scrapyard. She said ideally she'd similar to spot the concern moved to a antithetic location. 

"There's conscionable excessively galore lives for thing similar that to beryllium successful here," she said. 

"They should conscionable instrumentality it and determination it wherever there's nary homes, cipher surviving and past if thing blows up and it gets retired of power they don't person to interest astir it, due to the fact that they're distant from people, they're distant from people's homes."

WATCH | Here's what this neighbourhood has to accidental astir a occurrence astatine a Fredericton scrapyard:

According to the Fredericton Fire Department, the occurrence was reported conscionable earlier 3 p.m. and was nether power earlier 5 p.m. The occurrence was constricted to a tiny scrap heap and the trailer it was being loaded into. 

David McKinley, adjunct lawman occurrence chief, said it appeared that AIM was pursuing its occurrence information plan, ensuring that piles of scrap were not excessively ample and were kept abstracted from 1 another. 

"It wasn't a large large heap that we had to interest astir spreading to the remainder of the gait due to the fact that their piles were each made tiny and manageable, and that mode if determination was a fire, we didn't person to interest astir a ample incident," helium said. 

"This ended up being a reasonably debased effect incidental compared to astir scrapyard fires."

The cause is being investigated, but McKinley said scrapyard fires usually begin with a artillery oregon immoderate benignant of spark. 

In bid to enactment retired the fire, firefighters had to tally hoses from a hydrant 600 metres distant from the yard, but the section is prepared for those benignant of situations, helium said.

But immoderate successful the country would similar to spot a occurrence hydrant person to the community. 

"A tiny occurrence tin pb to a large one, and the occurrence hydrant's retired determination a fractional a mile distant oregon what not," said nonmigratory Gary Northcott.