The Richwood Police Department is investigating a Friday night fire at a Richwood business.
Randy Riffle, chief of the Northern Union County Fire and EMS, said about 9:25 p.m., Friday, his department received a call about the fire at Kirby’s Auto Parts and Towing, 28 Marriot St.
Riffle said six separate vehicles caught fire. He said all six were in one general area. The chief explained that Kirby’s used a piece of loading equipment to move the vehicles to a location near the front of the attached salvage yard.
“They had the big loader going and brought the cars to us so we didn’t have to take the trucks back in,” Riffle said.
He did say it is unusual to have multiple fires in the rain.
“We have no idea how they started,” Riffle said.
He said that in the past, employees have gone into the salvage yard to work on vehicles. The chief said that on occasion a spark would catch something on fire or would smolder and start a fire later. He said that is unlikely in this case.
“No one was working back there,” Riffle said.
He said that recently the salvage yard has worked on cars away from the other vehicles in an attempt to eliminate accidental fires.
The chief said he does not know if Friday’s fire was intentional.
“The owner seems to think it was someone back there doing foul play, but I don’ have anything that says they were,” Riffle said.
He said his department will not investigate the cause. The owner has gone to Richwood Police Department.
Officials from the police department have not returned multiple messages looking for information.
Riffle said that in addition to his department and the Richwood Police Department, firefighters from Leesburg Township, Radnor Township and Marysville fire departments helped with, “mainly with manpower” at the scene.
He said there were no injuries
In August, about 60 cars were destroyed in a fire Friday afternoon at Kirby’s Auto Parts and Towing in Richwood.
The chief said the fire was confined to the junkyard area and no structures were damaged during the incident.
At that time Riffle said his department would not investigate the fire because finding the cause was unlikely.
“There’s no way we’re going to track down how it happened,” Riffle said shortly after the August fire.
Due to the heat at the scene, he said eight different departments were called to assist.