The scent of burning trash filled the air as firefighters sprayed down a smoking pile of garbage next to the Alaska Waste building near Lilly Lake. That was after a garbage truck driver called emergency services reporting explosions coming from a trash fire onboard.
“They [Alaska Waste] had followed their protocol, which is to find the first open spot they can and get it out of the vehicle, said Frank Dorner, a fire chief for the City of Kodiak. “The driver heard small explosions, pops coming from the load – once we arrived on scene we could hear the same thing.”
Firefighters responded around 10:30 a.m. and started putting water on the fire after the garbage truck parked nearby. The fire is out with no injuries reported, but it’s the second Monday in a row crews responded to a fire on that same street.
Dorner says that strategy took a while.
“Initial fire attack didn’t seem to be putting it out – it was kind of keeping it in check,” he said. “So we stayed back, put a lot of water on it, let it kind of go through its thing.”
Once the explosions started to calm down, crews dug in.
“Now we’re just doing the fun part, which is digging through the garbage,” the fire chief said. “We want to make sure that we don’t have any more hot spots because as they scoop this up and dump it in another dump truck or garbage truck, we don’t want a secondary fire, right?”
The cause of the fire is still under investigation, but Dorner says the team found a bucket that was producing heat. Fire officials pulled the bucket out and called in a front loader to dump dirt on it.
Dorner says the bucket was still swollen and warm when firefighters pulled it out of the trash pile, but the department would examine it after it cooled down.
He says garbage fires can be particularly difficult to put out because bags can keep water from hitting flames.
“Whatever you put in the garbage, make sure it belongs in the garbage,” Dorner said. “If it is batteries or other hazardous materials, I realize they’re hard to get rid of on Kodiak, but there are appropriate ways of doing it.”
He says it’s best to contact landfill or fire staff before throwing away potentially hazardous and flammable items. The island’s landfill accepts up to 40 pounds of hazardous waste per day for free.
