Fifth fire at Harmon junkyard posing multiple concerns

Firefighters battled yet another blaze at the car junkyard in Harmon late last night into the early morning. It's the fifth such fire at the site, with three of them happening within the past three months. KUAM News spoke speaks with a general manager of a company tasked to clean-up the junk vehicles there and how the continuous fires are impacting operations.

Plus, a member of the community voiced his concerns with the human and environmental impacts.

Another fire occured at the Roadside Towing Lot off Route 16, burning up multiple junk cars. Guam Fire Department units responded to the fire at 8:30pm Tuesday. With the assistance of Department of Public Works and the Guam International Airport Authority, firefighters bringing the flames under control at 1am Wednesday.  A look into the lot showed the burnt remnants of this ongoing issue. 

It’s not the first, second or even the third time a fire has broken out in the junkyard in Harmon. Rusted cars are evidence of previous fires there, and the area is where the fire broke out just last night.

It’s the fifth overall fire at the site according to James Park, general manager of AFK Global, with three happening within the past 90 days.  He said, "When I start the work to clean the junk cars out of here, we started like in May. Its already been three times. So its really bad."

"It just burned all the junk cars around here. And this is actually the fifth time according to the Fire Department," added Park.  His company is tasked with shipping the junk cars off island to Korea, but the continuous fires are putting a damper on those efforts. 

And while GFD's investigations to determine the cause is ongoing, he believes trespassers stealing car parts are the problem. "Actually last night, around 7 or 8pm, according to one of the guy who is working here on night shift, he saw some people who came here to take the parts out of the junk cars. But the problem is, in the junk cars, there's still a lot of gasoline inside of the gasoline tank. By mistake, I don’t know, but it set fire," he said.

It’s a serious concern not only putting employees at risk, but also impacting operations, putting them in the red. "Once the car is burnt, the value of the metal scrap goes down to less than 50 percent of the normal price. So that is a huge loss for our company," he said.

"Actually, we are losing our money - but our mission is to clean up Guam."

It’s also a concern for community member Farron Taijeron, who caught the massive fire on camera twice. "It’s wild," he said. "Power went out, so I didn’t want to stay at home. I went to Home Depot to get some laundry soap, and as I'm coming back I see the smoke plume. I'm like, 'Oh, great, here we go again.' This is actually the second time I witnessed the fire there and covered it on my own Instagram."

Taijeron posting video on his social media profiles, showing how large the fire grew within minutes with smoke billowing towards Tumon.  "It’s an embarrassment if you have flights coming in. You have tourists that are like, 'What is all that smoke?' And it's very shameful for me as someone who absolutely loves this island as a born and raised local," he said.

He also highlights the real dangers of smoke inhalation, saying, "That smoke, smoke inhalation injuries are real. I did a survey for my studies at the University of Guam, where I’m doing my undergrad. I’m an agriculture and life sciences major. And I did a study, I had over 200 respondents, and a couple of people just in that 200 respondents said they get care from a doctor on smoke inhalation injuries."

Also concerned with the threat to human and environmental health, Guam Environmental Protection Agency spokesperson Nic Lee told KUAM News an active investigation into the prior fires are underway.  He says “Official compliance orders, administrative penalty orders and a notice of violation could occur once the agency's investigation is complete.”

The company manager also told KUAM there is no way for them to stop trespassers, adding the best option for the company is to just move the junk cars out of the scrap yard as soon as possible. 

If you spot an suspicious activity at the Harmon junkyard, you are asked to call it in to the Guam Police Department immediately.