I don't know if this is the right spot to post this but it has dozers in it so I thought I'd post it here. If the moderator guys think it's in the wrong spot, feel free to move it. Today on my way back to the shop I saw a plume of smoke coming from the BFI landfill off of Highway 7. It's been really windy the last couple of days so when I stopped by it was pretty evident that the firefighters were having a lot of difficulty putting out the flames, however it appeared BFI's personnel were having a little more success by dumping fill and pushing it onto the fire with dozers. So if our picture uploader decides to work I'll post my pictures for you guys, and if it doesn't I'll have to resort to photobucket.
well, that's one way to get rid of trash...........
I must admit to not knowing all the facts but there is NO way that we would cover a active landfill blaze. Having been involved in the extingushing of 3 landfill fires here in Australia in land fill facilities, our four step proceedure is: EXCAVATE to the base of fire EXTINGUSH all sources of fire LEAVE open for 2-3 days to monitor for flare-ups BACKFILL with non flammable/less fammable materials (where possible) This can be a long and drawn out process but we have never had a flare-up. The last fire I attended, we excavated for 3 days using 2 40tn class excavators as well as 3 30tn ADT's for cart-away, before we were able to locate the base of the fire. I personally would like to know more (if possible) about the fire photographed above.
Why would they bother. Surely a great way of getting rid of trash. OOPs I supose thats not very PC
Well sorry Dave but these are the standards in Canada. And like I said the fire was being driven by the wind so if you wanna go burn down an excavator and a rock truck be my guest. My dad who is a Deputy Fire Chief and I discussed what could be done differently to get at the base of the fire and one thing is attacking it from the upwind side as where they were attacking it from, they were having very little success except for getting the spot fires. They also parked the pumpers, tankers, and rescue units in a pretty precarious position as the wind could shift and blow embers towards the various apparatus and setting it on fire. But anyhow I was sharing pictures not looking for criticisms of something I had no involvement with.
Stockpiles of dirt are the most common acceptable means of putting out a landfill fire - at least in the State of Alabama and looks like certain jurisdictions in Canada as well. The State DEP requires an acceptable means to control landfill fires and stockpiles of dirt or water tankers are the two most common I have seen. Dave are you saying you guys dig into the active fire? In addition to the dangers of digging into a fire like the one in the pictures, aren't you worried about pockets of methane from voids and poorly compacted trash layers flashing while you are working? :beatsme Seems very dangerous to me, especially a large, deep fill where the fire may only be a few meters deep. I would like to know more about how you guys down under go about that. Thanks for sharing the pics 245. It's got dozers in the pics so I guess the thread should stay here.
more room that will burn for years ,and the tip will settle allowing more to be filled i can remember as a kid my dad being called out to the local tip on a sunday to doze out the fire that some little fire starters had got going
Only involved once with a fire at a tip about twenty years ago where we dug out the fire with a 245 cat and sprayed large amounts of water on it with 14 slurry vacuum tankers.The fire started because of poorly compacted rubbish against the face of rock,as the dump was an old quarry.
:thumbsup :drinkup
I should expand on my original post. The EPA and Local Government regulations here where I live state that any combustion in /on a liandfill must be extinguished. That said, SURFACE fires are simple to extinguish, however SUB-SURFACE fires are a completely different senario. Yes we dig into a fire to chase and extinguish the "seat" of the fire it however must be said that we have never had a fire deeper than 25 metres. Our landfill is both a "Industrial/dry and Domestic/wet landfill and as such produces substanial amounts of Methane. So much Methane is produced that we have 3 gas turbine electricity generators onsite feeding power back into the grid. If we allowed the fire to burn unchecked we would have a fire feeding off the methane, causing possible subsidence, altering the chemical composition of the Leachate as well as closing down the landfill due to the possible safety risk to the general public.
We have to excavate the material here. In MS rubbish sites we ar eonly allowed to make lifts of 4 to 5 feet. We have only had 4 fires One was a sawdust stock pile and it went out on its own. The other time a 40 yar loa of kiln dried blocks caugt fire from a thinner rage someone put in te dumpster. I ad covered the most of that lift that morning. When it dumped out the can got air and caught up. I took the D5 and pushed out from around it. and let it burn out. We took my brothers 120 Hitachi and dug rooted out to the bottom of the lift adding water.
Yeah from what I saw it was mostly a surface fire, with how windy it gets here I think they cover as soon as they can but I could be wrong. I've hauled demolition debris and brush there many times and it always seemed like they were covering the trash in about three or four foot lifts and with how windy it gets here like yesterday smothering the flames was probably the best thing they could do as they had to tanker water in and they didn't seem to be able to position a crew on the "upwind" side of the fire so they weren't hitting the seat of the fire so it kept making spot fires. To bad there wasn't a water bomber in the area that would of cooled off the fire in a hurry.:tong Either way those guys weren't having much fun yesterday. My dad and I were discussing the situation there last night over the phone as he's a Deputy Fire Chief in my home town and both him and I have fought more than a few dump fires in the past and the what would of worked best for those guys was to use a "pincer" movement by positioning a crew at the upwind side and hit the hottest spots, while another crew works on the down wind side to put out the spot or jump fires. Anyway that's the end of my rant for today.