The deployment of two 100-foot aerial platform trucks — one from the City of Manteca and the other from the Lathrop Manteca Fire Department — kept a fire in a tire storage yard from doing more damage.

The early Sunday morning fire started next to a tire storage yard at an automotive center in the 400 block of North Main.

“With the two trucks we basically were able to drown the fire,” noted Acting Manteca Fire Chief Dave Marques.

Marques noted that tires “burn extremely hot”. Without being able to dump as much water as the aerial trucks were able to do from above the damages would likely have been significantly worse.

The fire damaged the automotive business, a nearby stereo store and partially burned a residential fence across the alley.

The suspicious fire started near the fenced in area with tires and spread to them. There are typically hundreds of tires in the yard