Parkside residents were living next to an illegal scrapyard. It took 3 fires for L&I to find out.

Gloria Pemberton, 77, said she felt a deja vu of sorts the minute her eyes began to water Tuesday as an acrid smell wafted through her home office window.

The block captain for the 4200 and 4300 stretches of Thompson Street peeped outside her window in time to hear a neighbor shout, “I don’t believe this … not again!”

A fire had broken out at Back 2 New 2, a “24-hour tire shop,” collision repair business, and scrapyard, for at least the third time this summer.

“It was so bad, I’m in the house with an N95 mask on,” said Pemberton as plumes of smoke made their way from the site around the corner.

Breathing became so difficult that she took up a fire damage and restoration company’s offer — employees showed up at her door after the fire trucks — and let them install two industrial air scrubbers, one in the middle of her living room and another upstairs.

No one was injured Tuesday and the cause of the latest fire on the 1200 block of Belmont Avenue remains under investigation. But it was not until this third blaze that Back 2 New 2 came to the Department of Licenses and Inspection’s attention.

The day after the blaze, an inspector found the portion of the property where the fire broke out was operating as an illegal scrapyard. The business was also storing cars on an adjacent property, according to a department spokesperson. L&I issued several violations related to the fire code, zoning, and certificate of occupancy, but how the business went under the radar shows how the onus of enforcement often falls on residents.

Efforts to reach Back 2 New 2, which has no active licenses affiliated with the business, and owner Belmont Investment Holdings, were unsuccessful. It’s unclear when the business began to operate as a scrapyard but Khadijah Hameen, a 40-year resident of the area, said trucks are constantly noisily driving through and even leaving car parts behind.

On Wednesday, she pointed to a mangled front bumper lining the sidewalk of Inquiry Charter School and Belmont Charter High School, which sits across the street from the scrapyard.

“It’s been a nuisance,” said Hameen of the business.

There’s also a health-care and rehabilitation center around the corner. The facility’s offerings include respiratory care. Residents said despite the unpleasantness of being next to a scrapyard, concerns took a backburner to getting speed bumps installed on the street.

That is, until the spate of summer fires.

Hameen and Pemberton said they began to worry what the multiple incidence of exposure mean for their health and whose job it is to check on the scrapyard.

Scrapyard fires so often make headlines in Philadelphia, it’s become a bit of morbid humor.

L&I has tried to combat the “scrapyard fire season” jokes with action, touting a revamped inspection blitz this summer. Except law-abiding scrapyard operators say there’s a major limitation to these efforts: L&I can’t inspect the scrapyards it doesn’t know about.

» READ MORE: L&I revives its scrapyard inspection program: ‘We want compliance’

That is what appears to have happened in the case of Back 2 New 2, where it took three fires to get L&I’s attention.

The first fire took place late on July 7. An aerial view from a television report that day shows a thick stack of black smoke emerging from the site. The Department of Public Health tested the air quality after that fire and again this week, and said, “neither fire resulted in overly toxic levels.”

Yet another fire broke out at the scrapyard July 12 around noon, according to Fire Department dispatches. This fire, while alarming to residents, went largely unnoticed by local news and no air quality tests were taken.

After fire personnel arrive at a scene, they assess what type of backup they’ll need. According to the Philadelphia Fire Department, that could mean calling Peco or PGW, and in the case of scrapyard fires it means notifying L&I.

Fire Department spokesperson Rachel Cunningham says after a blaze is contained, the fire marshal begins investigating the cause but is not checking business licensing.

It’s unclear why Back 2 New 2′s licensing didn’t get flagged sooner. According to Cunningham, the department notified L&I of the July fires as indicated by protocol.

An L&I spokesperson did not immediately respond to questions regarding the oversight.

Russell Zerbo, an advocate with the Clean Air Council, said the plight of residents like Pemberton and Hameen get at the heart of why scrapyards are so difficult to get in compliance.

“You have a complaint-driven city agency that people don’t know how to make complaints to,” he said. “They’re certainly not proactively investigating these facilities.”

According to L&I, staff were at the scene Thursday to monitor “the progress of the oil/water mixture cleanup.” The business was given 10 days to remove the cars and parts stored in the private property and get “in compliance.” If it doesn’t, L&I said an order to cease operations will be issued.