Pembrokeshire: 20,000 dumped tyres removed by Environment Agency
More than 20,000 tyres dumped at a site in Pembrokeshire have been removed.
The Environment Agency Wales said that if they caught fire they would have produced toxic smoke and threatened nearby homes and a caravan park.
It said it had taken the "highly unusual step" of removing them from the site, which has not been named, because of the dangers involved.
Bob Phillips from the agency said it would seek to recover all its costs from the owner.
He said the owner had been served with a notice to clear the site but failed to do so.
"If these tyres had caught fire the implications for the community and environment could have been extremely serious," he added.
"And it could have been an ongoing problem as tyre fires can take days or even weeks to put out.
"With this in mind we decided to clear the premises ourselves, something we would not normally do as this is the responsibility of the person who owns the property."
The agency said it was not disclosing the location of the site as a prosecution may follow.
Earlier this year it helped clear 7,000 tyres illegally dumped on farmland at Towyn near Abergele, Conwy.
A tyre fire that burned in Swansea for 21 days last summer cost the authorities over £1.5m to extinguish and clear up.