A stubborn blaze at the Altona/Rhineland Waste Disposal Site kept members of the local fire department hopping last week.
Chief Greg Zimmerman says they received a report of smoke at the site north of Altona around 4 p.m. on Wednesday. Firefighters arrived to find a fire underway at the south end of the site.
“We were out there for a couple of hours and then we got everything handled and we went home,” he said.
But fire crews barely had time to relax before a second call came in, around 8 p.m., that the fire had broken out again.
“The fire wasn’t reburning where we put it down—it was burning below that,” Zimmerman explained. “It dropped down and went further south a couple of feet and then popped back up again.”
Firefighters resumed their work dousing the flames and using heavy machinery to dig up the area around the fire to stamp it out. The Winkler Fire Department was called in to help with a couple of their tanker trucks.
They were at it until about 3 a.m. and were then called back at 8 a.m. Thursday morning to find the fire had sprung back up on the northwest corner of the landfill.
Modern landfills do a great job of limiting fire risk, but once one starts it can be tricky to put it out, Zimmerman said.
“Our public works crews are doing a great job at the landfill—they get so much garbage and then they cap it off, put soil on top, and compact it all down. And then they start putting more garbage on top. So it’s no longer 10 or 15 feet deep; now it’s only a few feet deep and much easier to get to.”
As to the cause, it’s hard to say, but there are some likely culprits.
“It could be a lithium battery,” the chief said. “People throw those out, though they’re not supposed to, and then what happens is the compactor runs over top of them and it breaks the battery and then it catches fire.
“Another one that happens is people throw oily rags out, and then once it’s in the landfill and gets buried and is under pressure it starts smoldering a little, eventually igniting.”
Zimmerman reminds people that batteries can be safely disposed of at Blue Sky Opportunities in Altona.
He also reminds area residents that fires should not be lit in especially dry conditions nor when winds are over 30 km/hr, as has been the case in recent days.
Zimmerman sends thanks out to the employers of the nearly two dozen firefighters who spent the night and day away from work battling this blaze.
“We’d like to thank the employers that allow our members to attend these things,” he said. “We’re very fortunate here in Altona that I can run up to 22 people or so at a call in the middle of the day. A lot of departments can’t because their people work elsewhere. Our members work here in town and our employers are very generous about letting them go for things like this.”
