Residents in the area near a garage where a massive fire occurred Monday are demanding that the owner of the business take his operations elsewhere.

The fire at the Strachan’s Auto Shop on Soldier Road engulfed most of the property and posed tremendous danger to nearby residences and businesses.

But those who live in the area told the Bahama Journal that they have been fighting to have this business moved out of their area for years.

In fact, the residents who spoke with the Journal on the basis of anonymity claimed that they have even submitted several signed petitions to the government seeking to have those operations shut down.

“This fire was bound to happen,” one nearby resident said. “It seems as if there are no regulations guiding how this place is run or how it should go about doing things.”

The yard is filled with derelict vehicles stacked one on top of the next.

But according to the Environment Minister Kenred Dorsett the only derelict vehicle site is the government’s site on Marshall Road.

“Nothing is going to be done until something more serious happens,” another resident said. “I feel like having a scrap metal business in your backyard is breeding ground for criminals and criminal activity.

“There are probably stolen items just sitting there or people going around stealing cars and then destroying them and dropping the parts of to this shop – and all of this is happening where people live.”

Thomas Sweeting has lived directly adjacent to the site for 13 months.

He said had the fire traveled in an easterly direction, he and his family would have lost everything.

“As soon as I saw what was happening, I just began taking everything out my house because that fire was big and there was a lot of smoke along with it,” he said.

“These dumps and stuff should be put in properties far away from people’s homes. That would have been a blow to lose everything just like that.”

Minister Dorsett has promised a thorough investigation into the cause of the fire and he encourages residents who may have been suffering from any respiratory illnesses to go to one of the nearby clinics.