July 13, 2007
Albany--That inert Albany landfill on Maple street that started Tuesday night is now out. About thirty city and county work crews worked around the clock the past few days to put the fire out.
"When this fire started it looked really bad," says public works director, Phil Roberson.
Roberson says, fortunately, rain has helped eased the severity of Tuesday night's fire.
"That amount of rain in a short period of time was able to cool the fire down. We were able to get a little closer to it, and get in proximity to the fire and consequently we were able to bring the material and dirt in to cover the top of the fire up," says Roberson.
Crews did this in an effort to keep the fire away from nearby homes.
"The fact that it was surrounded by mostly dirt, kept it from being a real immediate danger to a lot of the houses in the area," says Roberson.
This morning crews will continue working to cover parts of the landfill that burned with dirt.
"We'll be finishing up trying to put the site back into good shape. We're going to get the area back in good shape again so we can get in and out because this is an active inert landfill. In other words, we have yard trash coming in here everyday. Whatever fire is in there will be eventually smoated out," says Roberson.
Roberson expects to have the site completely operational by Monday or Tuesday. By then, Roberson also hopes to have the landfill's tub grinder back up and running in order to begin recycling and turning a lot of the yard trash into compost.
The landfill collects 10,000 tons of yard trash every year.
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