The Nation - News from June 14, 1987

A spectacular fire amid 2 million discarded tires near Platteville, Colo., was finally extinguished, after firefighters finished burying the heap in about three feet of dirt, officials of the Weld County Office of Emergency Management said. The fire broke out Tuesday night when lightning struck the pile of tires at a private salvage yard known as “Tire Mountain.” Twenty-five people in a five-square-mile area had been evacuated. At first, the fire threatened to engulf 6 million tires containing a fuel equivalent of 3.8 million gallons of crude oil, but crews were able to confine the blaze to about one-third of the acreage.