A fire that started in separated piles of wood chips and mulch at the landfill yesterday was too fierce to bring under control and continued to burn through the night.
Senior Station Fire Officer in Alice Springs John Kleeman says it’s not known how the fire started but the fire service was called out at about midday yesterday.
He says fire-fighters and council staff poured a lot of resources into containing the spread of the fire, but at its seat it was “very intense and hot”and heavy plant could not gain access to pull the burning fuel apart.
It was decided to let the fire burn itself out and the focus shifted to making sure it didn’t spread to other separated waste such as oil.
Mr Kleeman says there are good fire breaks in place and a bit of back-burning also helped.
Today heavy plant has pulled apart the smouldering mounds and wetted them down to throughly extinguish the burn.
Our photo was taken at around 9pm last night.
Friday, April 19, 2024
The freedom of the press still furnishes that check upon government which no constitution has ever been able to provide – Chicago Tribune.
This is the second time that wood chips and mulch have burned at the landfill, that I recall.
The previous occasion was when a wildfire took hold from adjacent buffel grass several years ago.
It’s not good enough – people try to do the right thing by separating green waste for composting and re-use, there is the expense of processing all this material, and then it goes up in flames.
It seems that whatever system is in place at the landfill operation is in need of review.