It took crews three hours and over 4,000 gallons of water to douse a fire at the Glenmore Landfill Sunday evening.
Crews responded to the dump fire around 5:15 p.m. and used approximately 100 times more water than what is needed to put out an average house fire.
Platoon Captain Henry Roelofs said it is challenging to snuff out landfill fires.
“They’re kind of difficult to get out because it will burn down and there almost isn’t a bottom to it,” said Roelofs.
“The trick is to get everything as soaked down as possible so it doesn’t reignite.”
Roelofs added it is nearly impossible to determine the cause of any fire that starts at a landfill.
“Where the fire came from, nobody will ever know because it’s in a pile of garbage,” said Roelofs.
“The real likelihood is that somebody put something in their garbage that wasn’t maybe (extinguished)…it happens every now and then.”
Glenmore Landfill drivers assisted fire crews by moving the garbage around so crews could get water to all hot spots.
Roelofs said landfill users should use extra caution to make sure all garbage, especially smoking materials, are completely extinguished before they are taken to the dump.
wpaterson@kelownacapnews.com
