Fire at Kraljevo recycling yard sends black smoke over city

A fire at a Kraljevo recycling yard broke out shortly before 11 a.m. on Saturday, August 1, 2026, inside the Steel Impex recycling and scrap purchase centre in the Stari aerodrom industrial zone. A column of thick black smoke climbed above that part of the city and was visible from several neighbourhoods. Fire and rescue crews and police were sent to the site and worked to contain the blaze.

The smoke reached residents before any announcement did. Emergency lines logged a heavy volume of calls from worried Kraljevo residents, because the black column could be seen from the far side of town.

What was actually burning at the yard

The two available accounts do not match, and that is the sharpest open question of the morning. Kurir reported that the fire caught tyres stored on the premises. Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) states something else outright, that car seats in the yard had caught fire.

Same location, same fire, different material. Until the authorities speak, neither version can be treated as established. The company also appears in some outlets as Stil Impex, while its registered name is Steel Impex.

Worker: I could not put it out alone

Yard worker Branko Janicijevic said he had walked the storage area at about half past eight in the morning. The fire started shortly before 11, roughly two and a half hours after that round.

“When I ran down there I saw I could not put the fire out on my own, so I called the firefighters straight away and they came. This is waste material and it is normal for spontaneous combustion to happen.”

Spontaneous combustion is his assumption, not an official finding. The cause had not been determined at the time of reporting, and no one had said who would carry out the site inspection.

Flames stayed away from the building

Maja Muskinja, the centre’s operations director, said the fire was under control and that the flames had not reached the building. “Pozar je vec bio na neki nacin lokalizovan jer je bio odvojen od zgrade,” she explained, adding that stored waste was what burned.

That is why the intervention came down to one pile of material in the yard. Had the fire reached the building, the job would have been considerably harder and an evacuation unavoidable.

Injuries and damage

No official information on injuries was available in the first hours. There was no word of any employee being treated, and none of the neighbouring firms in the industrial zone were reported evacuated.

Damage figures were promised only once the authorities issue a statement. In practice that means two steps: the site inspection and the finding on cause first, then a valuation of what burned.

What is already clear is that this is a plant handling waste, material that sits in the open. In August heat such piles carry a real risk of self-ignition, which is exactly the point the worker made. The Stari aerodrom industrial zone is densely built and butts up against residential streets, so the smoke read as far more alarming than a fire of this size warranted.

What comes next

The authorities have yet to speak on cause and on damage. Three questions stay open until they do:

• what was in the burning pile, stored tyres or car seats
• whether the material ignited on its own or an outside source was involved
• how much material damage the company sustained

For the residents who dialled the emergency number, the practical question was what they were breathing. The answer depends on the first item on that list, since burning tyres and burning upholstery do not produce the same smoke. No official confirmation of the material had arrived by the time this article was filed.