LAHARPE — Emergency crews stayed overnight Wednesday and into Thursday morning to ensure a fire in the landfill’s trash cell had been fully extinguished.
The fire was reported at about 8:40 p.m. Wednesday.
LaHarpe Fire Chief Marc Waggoner said crews arrived to see much of the western slope ablaze.
On top of LaHarpe rural volunteer firefighters, mutual aid was provided by firefighters from Moran, Iola and Allen County, Waggoner said.
“We wanted to get it knocked down as quickly as we could,” Waggoner said.
The location of the fire posed some challenges. Crews cannot drive their trucks onto the trash cell, “which meant we had to stretch a lot of hose,” Waggoner said.
Nevertheless, the fire was largely extinguished within a couple of hours.
The crews had other factors in their favor, Waggoner noted. First, winds were out of the east, blowing smoke away from the firefighters. And the cell consists of several layers of dirt, which help mitigate chances of spreading.
“It can get to where it’s burning underground if you let it go too long,” Public Works Director Mitch Garner noted. “But they got it out before that.”
Garner and several county crews remained, even after firefighters left the scene just before midnight, to continue watching for flare-ups.
They doused those flare-ups with water and spread dirt over them to ensure they were fully extinguished.
The landfill was given the all-clear to reopen for business Thursday for regular operations, at which point Garner and others who had been at the scene overnight were sent home.
“It was a long night,” Garner said.
THE CAUSE of the fire may never be known.
Waggoner noted discarded lithium batteries have been known to generate tremendous amounts of heat, which could have played a role.
“But we’ll probably never know what’s in there,” Waggoner said.
To that point, Waggoner noted occasional booms and pops were reported during the blaze, likely from exploding aerosol cans or other flammables.
