Junkyard fire set off by lightning strike
NORTH SMITHFIELD – Golfers know that a golf course is not a good place to be when thunderstorms approach and Ralph Ferra, 77, the owner of the Iron Woods Golf Practice Center at 1081 Iron Mine Hill Road, now knows that is also true for a driving range. Ferra, who runs the counter at his driving range, said on Wednes- day fire investigators now believe a lightning strike from Tuesday afternoon’s storms likely started a fire in a stack of stripped automobiles at the auto salvage yard he runs next door that was discovered later on Tuesday. About 20 vehicles were involved in the fire which members of North Smithfield Fire Department extinguished after being called to the scene. Ferra said Tom Wecal, Iron Woods’ golf professional had just started a golf lesson with customers under a canopy-covered practice area at the range when the thunder arrived at about 1:30 p.m. “We heard two blasts, lightning bolts, and Tom said ‘I’m calling it quits for the day,’” Ferra recalled. “We didn’t think anything more of it and went about our day,” Ferra, who also owns and operates Bernard’s Auto Parts on the Iron Mine Hill Road property, recounted. It was later in the evening when he had gone to his home on Iron Mine Hill Road that Ferra got a call from the auto parts business that something had happened. “I was just about to get in the shower and went up there,” he said. Ferra saw a fire burning in the stack of junked cars and said he knew right away he had to call the fire department. Firefighters arriving on scene set up lines into Ferra’s pond for a water supply and then quickly knocked down the fire in the vehicle stacks. “They did a great job and got it under control right away,” he said. All of the vehicles involved had already been cleaned up for scrapping and had had their engines, batteries and gas tanks removed as part of the standard preparation process, according to Ferra.
All that was left was the upholstery and inside furnishings, he noted. After the fire was put out, an investigator from the State Fire Marshal’s Office looked into the cause and told Ferra on Wednesday that it appeared the lightening in the area had sparked something inside the stacked cars that smoldered until it finally broke out and was discovered. Ferra has run Bernard’s since 1968 and the previous owner had started the business back in the mid-1950s, he noted. “Nothing like this has ever happened before during all those years,” he said. Ferra said he also suspected lightning as the cause since there was nothing in the stripped down vehicles that could have started a fire. “We run a clean operation and have our certifications from the DEM,” he said. The cars in the stacks were all awaiting crushing by a company that comes to do such work on site, Ferra said. The process requires that all hazardous materials be removed before the scrapping takes place, he added. With the sun finally out on Wednesday, Ferra was back at the driving range selling buckets of golf balls to customers stopping in for an afternoon of driving. The auto salvage business was also back in operation and its employees out in the yard working on newly acquired vehicles.