Debris at a vacant Federal Way property, including hundreds of used tires, caught fire and sent a pillar of black smoke high into the air Oct. 28 before being put out by firefighters.

“The fire was contained to just the debris in the yard, though several large trees were scorched,” said South King Fire and Rescue Capt. Jeff Bellinghausen. “The vacant home on the property was not involved in the fire and no one was injured.”

The blaze, in the front yard of a property in the 1900 block of South 341st Street, produced a smoke column that could be seen from Des Moines to Tacoma. It took firefighters about three hours to put out the bulk of the fire and about three additional hours to consider the fire completely extinguished.

“Tire fires are notoriously difficult to extinguish, and this was no exception,” Bellinghausen said. “We eventually brought in the ladder truck and blasted it with the 1,000-gallon-a-minute nozzle.”