Calgary Metal Recycling ordered to reduce scorched pile

Calgary Metal Recycling has been ordered to cut the size of its "auto fluff" pile.

It's the material created from crushing cars and ahuge pile of it caught firein late April.

It took10 days for crews to put the fire out.

Fire Chief Bruce Burrell says inspectors told the company to deal with the giant pile two days before the big fire.

"They actually did go down on the Friday night before the Sunday evening and did give the verbal direction to the company that they had to start breaking down that pile into smaller piles," he said.

Burrellsays the provincial fire code limits how much material can be stored in one pile.

"Subsequent to the incident, we've actually provided them with written orders which have a time frame on them for compliance," he said."So they have to start doing work on getting those piles broken down by June 4 or we'll be taking further action against them."

Burrell says the pile held about 120,000 cubic metres of combustible and toxic material.

He says it could have been a significant environmental problem if crews had not been able to keep it under control.