NYPD auto pound with vehicle evidence is ‘burning down’: officials

The NYPD’s massive Brooklyn auto pound — which houses vehicles including those considered evidence in crimes — was “burning down” as flames engulfed it Tuesday, fire officials said. 

“It was just smoke — now there’s legit flames,” an FDNY source told The Post.

The blaze erupted at 10:37 a.m. at the Erie Basin Auto Pound on Columbia Street in Red Hook, a Fire Department spokesman said.

The blaze grew to three alarms less than an hour after it erupted, fire officials said. A total of 33 units with 140 firefighters responded. 

Photos show enormous plumes of smoke rising from the facility, which houses vehicles such as those suspected of being used in the commission of a crime and ATVs that were illegally on the road, law enforcement sources said.

Some vehicles involving line-of-duty deaths — such as those of Officers Eddie Byrne, who was killed sitting in his squad car in 1988, and Miosotis Familia, who was shot execution-style while in her car in 2017 — also are kept at the Brooklyn facility, sources said. 

Two firefighters sustained minor injuries in Tuesday’s blaze, the FDNY source said.

The cause of the fire was not immediately known. 

The same facility was damaged during Hurricane Sandy in the fall of 2012, and evidence was ruined, sources said. 

In the aftermath of the storm, corrections were supposedly put in place to avoid any future damage, according to sources. It’s unclear whether those precautions were ever enacted. 

The NYPD has another auto pound in Springfield Gardens, Queens.

The facilities “are used to store vehicles that have been seized for reasons other than parking violations,” according to the NYPD’s website.

Smoke and traffic delays were expected in the area around the Brooklyn impound, and those nearby should avoid the smoke and close their windows, the city’s Office of Emergency Management said in an alert.