Vehicles burn at Crows Landing Road wrecking yard

Modesto firefighters contained a fire at a Crows Landing Road wrecking yard to eight vehicles early Tuesday morning.

The call came in about 4:30 a.m., and the first unit on the scene found eight vehicles on fire in the yard behind the business, said Modesto Fire Department Battalion Chief Randy Anderson.

“They were able to get two hose lines around the vehicles because they were all lumped together, not spread out, which is good,” Anderson said. “They protected the buildings so the fire didn’t extend to them.”

The wrecking yard is on the 500 block of Crows Landing, Anderson said, but he did not have the name because no sign was posted and the owner was not at the scene the same time Anderson was. The cause of the fire is not known, Anderson said, but the business owner told firefighters that in the recent past, he’s had issues with break-ins.

It took about 35 minutes for firefighters to knock down the blaze, and they were on the scene for about an additional hour.

The cars lost were salvage vehicles in various states of disrepair, said Anderson, who added it’s hard to know the makes of the vehicles but the loss probably was between $15,000 and $20,000.

This story was originally published May 12, 2015 at 8:20 AM with the headline "Vehicles burn at Crows Landing Road wrecking yard."