Up in Smoke - The Margin

This story was produced in collaboration with The Margin and WHYY News.

When Christina Allen returned home from work, she saw an ominous sea of smoke engulfing the skies above her neighborhood during a massive scrap-metal fire in Camden, New Jersey, in February 2025. 

“Everything went kind of dark and dull,” she said.

Allen, a social worker, mother of a young child and lifelong resident of Camden, saw flecks of white ash the size of snowflakes falling from the sky, as she parked her car and walked toward her family’s rowhome. The air smelled like plastic burning in a bonfire. She could taste char in her mouth, and the cloud of smoke took on an orange glow. 

“It looked like it could be a big fire cloud,” Allen said. “It looked like something from out of a movie scene.”

Less than a half mile away, a roughly two-story-tall mountain of metal morphed into a four-alarm blaze at a scrap shredding facility run by EMR, a multinational metal recycling company with U.S. operations headquartered in Camden and global ones in the United Kingdom.

About 100 residents, including Allen, evacuated their homes that evening as the fire raged on for nine hours. Firefighters from nearly 20 companies worked to extinguish the flames. Camden County Commissioner Director Louis Cappelli Jr. said it was "by far the worst fire that has occurred on this site."

The locations above for EMR’s Camden sites, save for the location of the EMR Shredder Facility, come from the New Jersey Office of Attorney General’s lawsuit against EMR.

The Margin and WHYY News interviewed seven Waterfront South neighborhood residents who experienced acute health symptoms or lingering psychological impacts after the fires. 

Allen’s mother, Felicia Biles, and her stepfather, Michael, left for a relative’s house in the suburbs within minutes of smelling smoke and hearing fire engines. They brought Biles’ rescue inhaler and portable oxygen concentrator, which she sometimes needs to breathe. The family stayed at a hotel paid for by EMR. 

The fire in February 2025 pushed Camden leaders to come together to take action to prevent a fire of this scale from ever happening again. The city and EMR signed an agreement meant to improve fire safety, reimburse the city for firefighting expenses, and fund community efforts. But many residents weren’t happy, with some filing lawsuits against EMR, one claiming the company’s sites spew “noxious emissions” that stop them from enjoying their homes and another seeking damages for psychological torment and lost wages. 

But in the early morning hours on May 29, 2026, another blaze broke out at EMR’s shredder facility. In its aftermath, city, county, and state elected officials implored the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, the U.S. EPA, and “every other regulatory agency with any jurisdiction” to shut down EMR.

Nearly a week later, the city ordered EMR to cease operations at the site. 

EMR is fighting back. The company sued the city June 15 for what it called a “groundless” suspension, claiming that continuing the shutdown would cost jobs and that the agreement itself acknowledged that fires could continue. EMR has blamed flammable lithium-ion batteries in consumer products as the real driver behind the fires. 

Now, as city leaders consider tougher accountability measures, including how long to continue EMR’s junkyard license suspension, some residents are left wondering whether they’ll follow through. 

Allen wants her elected officials to shut down the facility for good. She worries that if the city lets EMR restart its shredder, residents like her will simply be waiting for the next blaze.

“The city officials should really keep their word this time,” she said.

An unpopular agreement 

Weeks after the four-alarm fire in February 2025, Carlos Morales, executive director of Heart of Camden, a nonprofit that has become the neighborhood resource hub for the fires, wrote a letter to EMR’s USA CEO Joe Balzano detailing community concerns. He referenced a meeting with Balzano, Carstarphen, a member of City Council, the city attorney, and the business administrator. 

“I came into that meeting hoping to hear something concrete—a real solution, a clear path forward that the community could trust. What I walked away with was something else,” Morales wrote. “I appreciated the blunt honesty from the city team. It was good for you to hear it, and good for me to hear it. There was no spin—just the hard reality that, as of now, EMR cannot guarantee this won't happen again.”

“If another fire happens—and you've said it very well could—the community will act,” Morales added. “People will block your trucks. They will protest. And the anger won't just be directed at EMR. It will fall on everyone who tried to work with you in good faith.”

Nearly two weeks later, Camden announced a memorandum of understanding with EMR requiring the company to allocate $6.7 million toward fire suppression upgrades, reimbursements to the city fire department for damages incurred during the February fire, and funding for community initiatives. The deal represented roughly 8.7% of the $77.1 million in tax subsidies EMR received from the state of New Jersey between 2019 and 2024. 

Carstarphen celebrated the arrangement and said that it “provides meaningful compensation” to neighborhood residents and “helps to safeguard against the threat of fire.” City Council approved the deal over passionate opposition from residents and community activists, shortly after a small fire broke out at one of EMR’s facilities.

“I can assure our residents that EMR will be held to these commitments, and we can all agree that we need to eliminate fires from this site,” Carstarphen said during the announcement.

The agreement was sealed with little buy-in from community members. When City Council was discussing the resolution authorizing the agreement with EMR, attendees held signs emblazoned with images of flames that read “Shame” and “Stop the Burn!” Nearly a dozen people stepped up to the microphone to oppose the agreement. Biles and Allen were among them.

“One thing that has not been brought up at all is about the health of the residents,” Allen told the council. She said she had asked for medical screenings to be provided to residents at a prior community meeting following the February 2025 fire, but the request had never been addressed. 

“I don't want to even speak on the EMR thing about ‘Oh, if they're still here,’ this is, they need to be gone,” Allen said.

Biles said the memorandum of understanding, or MOU, should include a provision offering buyouts to residents living near EMR’s facilities.  

“I'm ready to leave,” Biles said. “It's time to go, if they're not going.” 

But despite community concerns, each present Camden city council member, including Vice President Arthur Barclay, who represents the neighborhood, responded “yes” to the deal.

The MOU that the council approved promised $3.25 million over five years in grant payments to nonprofits for community initiatives in Camden. As of publishing this story, no grant money has yet been disbursed. Balzano said in mid-May he hoped the first payments would go out by August or September. 

Biles wants the company to compensate residents directly for costs incurred during and after fires, such as the costs of cleaning homes and running air purifiers, but the deal prohibits payments to individuals. 

“The people in the community, it’s not really for us,” Biles said. “It doesn't seem to really be benefiting us.

A fire suppression system that ‘didn’t work perfectly’

EMR operates nine facilities in New Jersey, including five in Camden’s Waterfront South neighborhood. The company buys, disassembles, sorts and shreds scrap metal, including household appliances, automobiles and material from other industrial businesses. EMR employs 535 people in Camden, according to the company, and of those employees, 191 live in the city.

EMR’s facilities in Camden are located blocks away from homes, a childcare center,  a homeless shelter, an opioid use disorder treatment center, and an elementary school.  

Balzano invited journalists from WHYY News and The Margin to tour the facility on May 15. When asked to respond to residents who characterize EMR as a "bad neighbor,” he agreed. 

“I feel that we let them down. I'm not going to sit here and make excuses for not being able to see what was coming. Batteries are new to us. I didn't realize how combustible they are. I think we've tried to get in front of it now as much as we can. Unfortunately, it took time to kind of come up with a solution.” 

On the tour of the shredder facility, which has the capacity to process up to hundreds of tons of scrap metal each hour, Balzano directed employees to activate a new sprinkler system installed around a 20-foot-tall pile of crumpled cars and mangled construction debris.    

Four water cannons, mounted on thin metal towers and on the body of a crane, swept back and forth over the massive pile of junk, dousing it with heavy streams of water. Balzano explained that the cannons can be guided by heat sensors that monitor the pile for hot spots that could spark fires. 

“If the thermal imaging cameras detect heat at anything over 225 degrees [Fahrenheit], it automatically turns them on,” Balzano said. “It turns the nozzle directly to the [heat] source and then fires on it.”

The new fire suppression system was one of the requirements under the company’s agreement with the city. EMR also expanded the water line serving the facility and increased the number of employees inspecting incoming material for fire risks, from two to six. 

“Just putting more and more people, more and more eyes there … to try to get to the point where we’re on it a little bit faster,” Balzano said. 

Balzano had given a similar demonstration of the fire suppression system to city and state elected officials earlier in the week. After the tour, Carstarphen said in a statement that he and members of City Council were confident the system would “improve safety” and “help restore residents’ faith that the appropriate steps are being taken.

“The system was designed in coordination with the Camden Fire Department to ensure a fire of that scale will never happen again,” Carstarphen wrote, referring to the four-alarm fire in February 2025. “The leadership at EMR made firm commitments to the city when entering into the MOU agreement. Since that time, I feel everyone involved has delivered on those commitments. The $6.7 million pledged is substantial but just as important is rebuilding trust and confidence with the community.”

But days after that statement, a two-alarm fire broke out at the shredder site. While it didn’t reach the scale of the February 2025 blaze, it was large enough and required the city’s nine fire companies, representing around three dozen firefighters, to respond. The fire burned for hours before crews brought it under control. Camden County detected hazardous levels of fine particulate matter just south of homes in Waterfront South. 

Camden Fire Chief Jesse Flax said EMR’s fire suppression system did help tamp down the blaze, though it didn’t work perfectly. One water cannon initially failed to operate, he said. 

“Once they got it on, it kind of contained everything to that general area. We weren't going to have any fire spread,” Flax told reporters. “Once we were able to get everything in place, we were able to extinguish the fire a little bit more rapidly.”

Flax framed the malfunction as a first-fire learning curve. “You're going to get some kinks and some bugs that we got to deal with,” he said. “But when it did activate, what did activate did help.” 

Flax added that the system allowed city firefighters to extinguish the blaze without the help of neighboring fire departments.  

At a protest by EMR employees against city leaders’ calls for EMR to shut down days after the May fire, Balzano said the fire suppression system worked as designed. “In the beginning, when we signed the MOU, we were very clear with the mayor that this would not stop fires,” Balzano said. “This would help contain them and keep them from being out of control. It worked exactly the way it was supposed to work.”

EMR employs nearly 200 Camden residents, some of whom make $25 to $40 an hour plus benefits, and the workers want EMR to stay open. Roughly a hundred EMR employees, many wearing blue T-shirts bearing the logo of the Teamsters Local 676 union, marched from outside the shredder site to Camden City Hall days after the May fire. 

“They should work out ways to keep this going,” said Alex Sosa, a Teamsters member who works as a mechanic keeping EMR’s scrap metal shredder running. “We deal with the junk, we deal with the trash.

In a letter to Carstarphen the morning of the rally, Balzano defended the company’s record, citing its commitment of millions of dollars to install what he described as a “state-of-the-art” fire suppression system at the city’s request, as well as “extensive” operational changes.

“All of these steps were taken in good faith reliance on the framework the City and EMR developed together,” Balzano wrote.

He acknowledged that the city faced “real public pressure” after the May 29 fire, but argued their agreement remained the “right path forward” and said EMR was willing to work with regulators, community leaders, labor representatives and first responders on further improvements.

“Our strong preference is to address these matters collaboratively rather than through adversarial channels,” Balzano wrote.

But the prior evening, Camden City Council Vice President Arthur Barclay called the agreement into question. 

“I'm almost certain that deal’s probably over now,” Barclay told residents at a community meeting. He called it a “gentleman's handshake,” and said he now doubts EMR will follow through on its commitments. “It wasn't a legally binding document, so they're probably going to move forward and just not do whatever.” 

EMR USA General Counsel, Michael Gross, rejected Barclay’s characterization. The MOU, he said, is a “fully executed, legally binding contract,” and said the company plans to “honor every commitment in this agreement like it already has.

Air quality and health concerns

Six residents living near EMR’s facilities described health symptoms during and immediately following the fires, and several described ongoing concerns about their long-term exposure to smoke and air pollution. 

Members of four households within 3,000 feet of EMR sites said that after the fires, they smelled smoke or a similar odor inside their homes, and five residents described coughing or having difficulty breathing during or shortly after fires. 

Kristin Schrum, a mother of two young children who lives in Waterfront South, remembers going to work at a school in the neighborhood during a fire at EMR’s shredder site in 2021. She said she drove the roughly two blocks she would usually walk from her home to work because of the fire, then struggled to make it from her car into the school. 

 “It was so smoky, I couldn't stop coughing,” Schrum said. “I was almost throwing up. Like couldn't even make it into the building without having to stop and cough and gag and almost get sick multiple times.”

Air quality and environmental health experts told The Margin and WHYY News that the fires likely release not only fine particles that can cause lung and heart issues, but also toxic heavy metals and potentially other carcinogenic air pollutants. During the four-alarm fire in February 2025, a community PurpleAir monitor located at the end of Biles’ and Allen’s block detected a spike in fine particle pollution into the hazardous range, according to an analysis by Ode for The Margin and WHYY News. An EPA monitor located at the sewage treatment plant less than 1,500 feet southeast of EMR’s shredder measured particulate pollution in the unhealthy range and a spike in benzene, a carcinogen, during the fire, Ode found.

Monitor Readings Nearby the February 21, 2025 Fire

The below map provides a layout of surrounding air quality monitors located near the source of the 2025 fire, including the severity of their readings for harmful particulate matter in the air and simulated movement of the wind at the time of the fire. The chart on the right shows the surge of harmful particulate matter in the air before, during, and after the fire.

Staying indoors offers “some protection” from air pollution, but older or poorly maintained homes tend to let more pollution in, said Robert Laumbach, an occupational and environmental respiratory disease expert at Rutgers University. Odors lingering inside homes indicate that pollutants may have seeped indoors, said Jennifer Richmond-Bryant, a professor at NC State University who studies human exposure to air pollutants. Those pollutants likely include polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, some of which are carcinogenic, which can cling to surfaces, including walls and tables, and then expose inhabitants through inhalation or ingestion. 

The smoke also likely contains airborne particles of toxic heavy metals, including lead, cadmium, chromium and mercury, which can accumulate in the body over time, said Kabindra Shakya, an environmental scientist at Villanova University. After a fire ends, noxious gases dissipate into the atmosphere, but heavy metal particles can settle into residents’ yards, Shakya said, where they can be tracked into homes on shoes and continue to expose people long after the smoke clears. 

Christina Allen was pregnant with her now 5-year-old son, Jehlani, during a fire at EMR’s shredder in January 2021. From inside the home she shared with her mother, she could smell what she described as “plastic burning.” 

Scientists have found that exposure to air pollution, including the tiny particles present in smoke, during pregnancy increases the risk of complications, including preeclampsia and gestational hypertension, and has been linked to low birth weight. One 2023 study found that exposure to particulate pollution in utero and early life was associated with decreased lung function later on in childhood.

Allen said Jehlani has not been diagnosed with any respiratory conditions, but he is often congested, seems to have “narrow airways,” and shows signs of sleep apnea. She often stays up late monitoring his breathing while he sleeps.  

It’s one of the reasons Allen has asked that health screenings be provided to residents after fires.

Firefighters who have responded to EMR’s fires have their own health concerns. The biggest worry for Pete Perez, the president of the Camden Firefighters IAFF Local 788, is potential carcinogen exposure, a risk firefighters typically face at higher rates than the general public. It’s also one that doesn’t end when the fire does, as they must navigate lingering smoke and thoroughly clean their gear. Perez, who was at the February 2025 fire as the union president, confirmed the findings of a public records request indicating that two firefighters sought medical attention in the days that followed.

Seven residents described lingering psychological effects. Allen said her sense of smell now feels “heightened,” and that the scent of anything burning triggers memories of the EMR fires.

Stalled regulation and piling litigation

Since the January 2021 fire, Aliyia Jones, a Camden native and Waterfront South resident, had been in and out of the emergency room and medical appointments for asthma and shortness of breath. She moved back to Camden after the Paulsboro train derailment. “I thought I was coming to Camden for relief,” she said. 

The February 2025 fire was Jones’ breaking point. “I couldn't sleep at night. I was always on guard, walking around, making sure there’s not a fire,” she said. 

Weeks later, she started therapy for the first time and was diagnosed with PTSD and panic disorder. In April, she quit her job as a direct support professional worker assisting adults with disabilities. 

“I couldn't concentrate. I was making mistakes on the clock,” she said.

In March, Jones sued EMR, seeking damages for lifelong anxiety, lost wages, depression, and stress. The lawsuit was dismissed without prejudice in early May, after a judge agreed with EMR’s defense counsel that Jones had not provided sufficient evidence that the company caused her distress. Earlier this month, she filed a motion to reinstate the case, which is scheduled to be decided July 2. 

Jones had also brought her complaints directly to officials at the NJDEP, the agency responsible for enforcing and implementing federal and state environmental law and issuing permits for industrial facilities, about what it had been like to live near EMR. 

In response to Jones’ testimony, then-NJDEP Commissioner Shawn LaTourette said, "There's no question that you are owed better than that.”

In January 2026, the NJDEP and the New Jersey Office of the Attorney General also sued EMR, alleging that at least a dozen “major fires” over the past five years had resulted from unsafe conditions at EMR’s facilities and that the company had failed to take “appropriate steps” to fix them.

Lawyers for EMR asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit. A Camden-based environmental nonprofit, the Center for Environmental Transformation, had previously sued the NJDEP and EMR in an attempt to compel regulators to inspect EMR’s facilities more often and require them to remove scrap piles more frequently.

The company also argued that the “vast majority” of the relief the state is seeking had already been implemented through the MOU and that the NJDEP lacked authority under state law to regulate fire risk or prevention. 

Following the May 29 fire, NJOAG released a statement saying “the latest fire only further confirms why EMR’s Camden facilities should not continue operating without the greater accountability and oversight needed to keep the community safe,” and that it would “continue our work in court to stop these dangerous fires once and for all.”

A key effort to increase oversight has been slow to advance. A bill that would reclassify scrap metal facilities like EMR’s as recyclers was introduced in the state legislature in June 2025 but has yet to pass in this session. The bill would require scrap metal recyclers to limit the size of shredder residue piles, mandate fire suppression systems and employee training, and require battery screening policies. 

One of the bill’s sponsors, State Assemblyman Bill Moen, whose district includes Camden, framed the measure as a necessary response to the proliferation of lithium-ion batteries in consumer products. “We need to basically follow suit and level up in how we are then classifying that waste,” he said in March.

The Recycled Materials Association, a trade group for recyclers that counts EMR as a member, opposes the bill. Frank Brill, a lobbyist representing ReMA, argued that it would burden small scrap metal businesses with additional bureaucracy.

“The only problem has come with these lithium-ion battery fires,” Brill said. “Subjecting [facilities] to annual fees and reviews and inspections and anything else that DEP wants to come up with … that are just going to be more trouble for this industry.”

A different bill requiring specific fire safety measures at scrap metal facilities, including remotely operated fire suppression systems at large scrap metal facilities, advanced through both chambers of the legislature this month and is awaiting a final legislative vote before it can head to the governor’s desk. EMR had expressed support for the bill earlier this spring, before it was amended to lower the allowable height for material piles.

The company was the top spender on lobbying in New Jersey within the environmental protection sector in 2025, according to state records.

Throughout these battles, EMR and its allies have consistently pointed to lithium-ion batteries as the cause of the fires. EMR and ReMA say there is currently no technology that allows scrapyards to automatically detect these batteries when they’re hidden inside scrap. An analysis by The Margin and WHYY News of three fire investigative reports on the barge fire May 23, 2022, the fire February 21, 2025, and the fire October 17, 2025, concluded the probable cause of ignition was undetermined. 

“It's not just our industry that is challenged by lithium-ion batteries. They're in everything,” said David Wagger, ReMA’s chief scientist. “Our members do their best because, quite frankly, it's an existential threat. No one wants to have not only their reputation ruined, but their facility become damaged and perhaps burn down.” 

A bill introduced to Congress last fall by U.S. Rep. Donald Norcross, who represents Camden, would create a tax credit to partially reimburse recycling companies for the cost of battery detectors, impose a tax on battery manufacturers and create a lithium battery recycling program, which would provide grants to facilities that collect and recycle lithium batteries. 

“Local jobs are important, but the community also needs to be safe,” Norcross said in a written statement.

‘If I had the money, I would move’

Felicia Biles loves the Waterfront South neighborhood of Camden, where she has lived for nearly four decades. She quilts with a group that meets monthly at a nearby arts nonprofit, grows vegetables and herbs at a community garden, and attends plays at the South Camden Theatre Company, all within walking distance of her home. Biles said the people are friendly, and her grandson, Jehlani, plays with kids who live nearby. 

“This neighborhood is beautiful,” she said.

Despite all of this, the fires at EMR’s facilities have made Biles want to move to a neighborhood where she feels safe. But she cannot afford it. 

“I'd rather my health take priority,” Biles said. “If I had the money, I would move.” Since the January 2021 fire, Jones has also been trying to move. “It’s a must that I relocate,” she said in May. 

While operations remain suspended at EMR’s shredder in Camden, residents like Allen and Biles, who want to see EMR shut down permanently, are in limbo. The city is set to reevaluate the suspension of the shredder facility’s junkyard license early next month. City business administrator Timothy Cunningham said during a City Council meeting that EMR could appeal the suspension, and that bills moving through the state legislature and the state’s lawsuit against EMR would be “influential factors” in the city’s decision.

At the City Council meeting earlier this month, Schrum, who has evacuated her home three times due to the fires, said her “level of fear” has decreased since the shredder was paused. When she hears the sound of fire trucks, she said she no longer needs to worry that they’re headed to EMR. 

“We have been waiting four or five years for this, and to have it finally, like, dangled in front of us, it needs to happen,” she said. “The license needs to be revoked permanently.”

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