PEABODY — Peabody officials have issued a cease-and-desist order for the J. D. Raymond site on Farm Avenue, where a mulch fire on Monday spewed heavy smoke and slowed traffic on three major highways, Interstate 95 and Routes 128 and 1.
By the terms of the order, said Mayor Ted Bettencourt, "Nothing can go into the site. It can go out."
He spoke before a meeting with John Raymond, whose company leases the property. According to the mayor, a long-term policy has not been decided.
"It warranted a cease-and-desist order until I can get a handle on the situation," said the mayor, who took office last month. In addition to "reaching out" to Raymond, he will confer with fire Chief Steve Pasdon and building inspector Kevin Goggin.
Spontaneous combustion has been blamed for the fire.
"It was a scary sight with little fires popping up here and there," Bettencourt said, having been at the scene Monday. "Two fires in a year and a half ... That's something to take seriously."
A June 2010 mulch fire at the same location was worse than this one, with four firefighters treated and released for smoke inhalation. High winds made it more difficult to deal with.
John Raymond spoke briefly with The Salem News yesterday as he prepared for a meeting with the mayor. He called the fire "just a little flare-up," which was easily extinguished.
On Farm Avenue, trees are processed and the chips piled as high as 50 feet in massive heaps as the process of slow combustion turns them into wood mulch, the material often found in gardens and around foundations.
Raymond's financial controller, Bill Rayfield, estimated that five to eight people typically work at the Farm Avenue location with up to 10 trucks a day making deliveries or taking mulch away.
"That product does naturally combust," Rayfield said. "There is generally a lot of heat."
He blamed an unpredictable burst of wind for Monday's trouble. The company suffered losses in the fire and has a keen interest in preventing fires, he said.
Yesterday, a Caterpillar tractor could be seen high atop one of the piles, moving the mulch about as white smoke rose lazily around it.
Pasdon expressed concern over what was a second fire in less than two years.
"We have to have some type of action," he said. "If that was in a (residential) neighborhood ... it would not be allowed."
Among the possible steps, he stressed the importance of carefully monitoring such activity.
As is, the mulch is separated from nearby trees, Pasdon conceded. And he suggested that declaring mulch a danger isn't as simple as it sounds.
"Do you tell every homeowner in the city to take it out?" he said.
Jennifer Mieth, spokeswoman for the state fire marshal's office, pointed out that new safety regulations for mulch are currently under consideration — including a rule requiring that the sorts of mulch piles dotting the Farm Avenue property be kept beneath a certain height and size.
"And far enough away from each other," she said.
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