Usually when someone says “The 76 is on fire” you may think they’re talking about the local NBA team. However, yesterday the 76 was literally on fire. By this, we’re talking about the 76 Expressway. Here, a photograph showed huge plumes of smoke in the distance.

Thankfully, this wasn’t the result of a car crash – and no one was hurt. This is because it was actually a fire from a junkyard in Belmont & Thompson where many of the city’s junkyards are located. In fact, this seems to be quite a recent uptick in junkyard fires in Philadelphia for some reason which may be due to a lack of policing or regulation when it comes to burning stuff like tires. Regardless, it doesn’t exactly look good for the city’s skyline and is also clearly very bad for the environment.

As a result of this recent phenomenon, it’s a bit of a Philly saying to hear someone say “There’s always a fire somewhere in Philadelphia” and sadly, this is quite true these days. As seen in the image above, the smoke generated by this fire was huge and could literally be seen from miles away.

Although not the most pressing issue in the world, this does serve as a timely reminder that perhaps it’s a good idea to put tighter regulations on local scrapyards that seem to be going the extra mile lately in creating gigantic fires and clouds of smoke.