Tire fire.
Junkyard blaze.
The words may be short, but they can lead to a long and drawn out battle for firefiighters and health experts.
The potential for toxic smoke being released into the atmosphere from such conflagrations always exists and they're especially worrisome because they can burn for days or even weeks.
As residents of the Rogers and Weston Road area found out on Thursday, the odour emitted from those kinds of blazes is a lot more than just unpleasant. It can also be dangerous. And there was a lot more than just tires burning in this one.
"They're tires; they're rubber insulation on wiring; they're inside parts of vehicles," explains Deputy Fire Chief Pat McCabe ."It's all kind of rubbish that are stored in these junk yards and, you know, to say exactly what's burning -- all of it's burning."
That's why the Ministry of the Environment has monitors in place to check on the air quality in the area of the huge burn.
CityNews has learned the scrap yard has been inspected three times since 2002 and it's the second fire there in three years.
Smoke from these kinds of blazes can cause the rubber in the tires and other products to leach sulfur dioxide into the air, ground and water.
Also believed present in all that thick black smoke - chemicals like xylenes, aldehydes, toluene and styrene.
Depending on the size and duration of the blaze, small particles with a carbon core are also sent wafting into the air and can easily be breathed deep into your lungs.
In fact, every tire that burns contains about 7.5 litres of oil. And experts estimate that for every million tires consumed by fire, some 378,541,000 litres of runoff oil can pollute the environment.
There's certainly not that many in the current blaze, but the hazards are obvious.
Health officials are concerned that those with breathing problems - including asthma, heart and lung diseases - are among the most at risk.
So why are they so hard to extinguish?
The round shape of tires and their big holes traps oxygen and keeps the flame-retardants from getting in. Most tires are also made to repel water, which further complicates matters.
But if residents in the west end are upset about what's in their air, they have nothing on the once beleaguered folks who called Hagersville home.
The biggest tire fire in Canadian history took place in that small Ontario town in 1990 and was determined to have been caused by some local kids playing with gasoline and matches.
An astounding 14 million tires caught fire, burned for 17 days straight, forced 4,000 people from their homes and sent a ton of toxic smoke into the air. Some 360,000 litres of oil was eventually recovered from the burnt out rubber orbs.
Fearful of repeating such devastating blazes, prevention at tire recycling plants like N.R.I. Industries, one of the biggest in the province, has become a high priority.
"It's very frustrating when you hear about these things because, for the most part, they're preventable," states C.E.O. Al Power.
"All our tires are stored indoors. We've got fire suppression equipment. We've got people on-site 24 hours a day."
Environmentalists believe that unless we regulate these industries better, Mother Nature will ultimately suffer.
"We should have a tire recycling program in place so these tires aren't sitting around," suggests Gord Perks.
"Second thing is the local community should know what's being stored and used on that site so they can know how potentially dangerous a fire would be."