(Arnolds Park)– No injuries were reported Thursday evening in a fire at the Dickinson County Landfill east of Arnolds Park. Doug Hanna of the Milford Fire Department tells KUOO news they were called to the scene a little after 5:00 pm…
“The first thing we did was make sure that there was some Waste Management people there, equipment operators, because they could handle a lot more fire than we can up on that pile. We went out and we did a little bit of, we put some water on it, we noticed it wasn’t doing much good. They were doing a lot more with their heavy equipment, so we just kind of stood by and made sure none of their stuff started on fire. If we needed to do something we were there to do it.”
Hanna says they were fortunate in that there was little or no wind…
“It really, it looked worse than it was. You know when you seen all the smoke and what it looked like on top of the pile, but then when you got up there it was, you know, there was a lot of surface stuff burning and yeah, we were lucky with the weather. It was not cold which kind of made some issues for their equipment because it was thawing and muddy and icy underneath, so they had some traction issues with a couple of pieces of equipment. But yeah, it went about as good as it goes out there.”
Hanna says they have no idea as to how it started…
“There’s a lot of different things that can happen, you know. You haul a hot load of who knows what, or chemical reactions with different things cause combustion.”
Hanna expressed their appreciation to Waste Management Crews and the equipment operators…
“The Waste Management guys did an excellent job showing up, coming back to work after they’d worked all day. They were probably out there all night to tell you the truth watching for hot spots.”
