The Edgartown fire department responded to the site of the former Mobil station at the airport Friday when a fiberglass tank that was being readied for transport turned hot enough to start smoking. Two people sustained minor injuries, fire chief Peter Shemeth said.

Chief Shemeth said the call came in about 5 p.m. Friday. The gas station was permanently closed two weeks ago after owner Michael Rotondo lost his lease with the Martha’s Vineyard Airport Commission. Faced with a July 31 deadline to vacate the site, Mr. Rotondo has been working furiously to remove all the infrastructure, including pumps, tanks, buildings, cement and asphalt.

Chief Shemeth said three 15,000-gallon underground fiberglass tanks have been unearthed and will be reused on Chappaquiddick as underground water cisterns to aid firefighting. The chief said two of the tanks have already been taken to Chappy, and the last one was loaded onto a trailer and being prepared for transport when the incident occurred. He said workers apparently were cutting a piece of steel pipe off the tank when the tank grew hot.

“I’m not exactly sure what happened yet, by the time we got the call the tank was smoking,” the chief said. “We put water in the tank and brought the temperature down. It may have been fumes, it may have been the fiberglass, it may have been that the tank was structurally compromised.” On Saturday the chief said he was still waiting for an incident report from the owner.

He said two people received minor injuries and transported themselves to the hospital for treatment. There was no ambulance response, he said.

Edgartown responded with the ladder truck and a pumper. “The ladder truck so we had a platform to work from, and the pumper so we had water and various other types of extinguishers,” the chief said.

Meanwhile, the dispute between Mr. Rotondo and the airport commission continues to generate plenty heat of its own, with Mr. Rotondo posting handmade signs at the property he is vacating and email volleys going back and forth between attorneys on both sides. The airport commission has taken legal action against Mr. Rotondo and is seeking hefty damages.

A new leaseholder who plans to operate a gas station at the site is waiting in the wings and has also filed legal action against Mr. Rotondo.

Chief Shemeth said the site was a beehive of activity on Friday.

“There was a crane oprator there removing the roof over the center island . . . there were a lot of people there, a lot of different things going on at the same time,” he said.