REYNOSA -- Juan Muñoz stood on his neighbor's roof and heaved a bucket's worth of water at the face of the snarling blaze.

Flames licked at the trees that stand beside the nearby homes, and Muñoz was at the end of a bucket brigade of his friends and family, all of whom frantically tried to douse the fire.

But as he tossed water into the inferno and dropped each empty bucket to the ground to be refilled, the fire raged on.

The massive blaze broke out about 2 p.m. Wednesday at the Materiales Rio Bravo plastic salvage yard, just west of the General Lucio Blanco Airport along Highway 2 in Reynosa.

Local officials said they did not know what initially sparked the blaze.

Maria Gonzalez, a dispatcher for the Reynosa Fire Department, said crews from Rio Bravo and Reynosa had not gained control of the blaze by 8 p.m., but they were making progress.

"It's less fire (than before) but they still have a long way to go," she said in Spanish.

No serious injuries were reported from the fire Wednesday afternoon, but as many as four nearby homes were damaged, said Miguel Angel Garcia Ahedo, the Reynosa city secretary.

Hundreds of large bales and bags of scrap plastic piled throughout the salvage yard fueled the inferno, which spewed forth a large plume of black smoke that hung in the sky and could be seen from about 15 miles away.

Andrea Morrow, spokeswoman for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, said the smoke posed no immediate hazard and the state agency had received no requests for assistance late Wednesday evening.

Amid the noxious smoke, firefighters and nearby residents frantically fought the blaze.

Firefighters from Reynosa and nearby Rio Bravo - some clad in old, donated protective gear from the cities of McAllen and San Juan - stood on ladders and sprayed water at the flames. With no municipal fire hydrants in the area, semitrailers brought in tanks of water to feed the fire hoses.

A backhoe was brought in to try to remove unburned bales of plastic and reduce the amount of fuel available to the fire. About a dozen Mexican soldiers also stepped in and pulled scrap plastic from the fire by hand.

Hundreds of onlookers gathered beneath an adjacent overpass to watch the spectacle unfold during the initial response, but many left the area as the flames continued into the night.

City officials were optimistic the fire would not spread beyond the salvage complex, which is surrounded by a concrete block wall about two stories tall.

"This is what happens when we don't take precautions and when we don't pay attention," Garcia, the Reynosa city secretary, said as he stood before the flames. "This is what can happen."

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Monitor videographer Travis Bartoshek and La Frontera reporter Quetzalli B. Prado contributed to this story. Jared Taylor covers law enforcement and general assignments for The Monitor. You can reach him at (956) 683-4439.